Small footprint real-time operating system for reactive systems

摘要

The present invention is a real-time operating system for use on embedded controllers having minimal resources controlling reactive systems or applications. One application of the present invention is in wireless sensors in a wireless sensor network. By requiring all tasks to have clearly defined start and end points, the present invention eliminates the Waiting state for a task. This allows the RTOS to have a very small memory footprint and for the RTOS to use a single call/return stack.

主权项

1. A microcontroller based system for resource constrained environments comprising:
a microcontroller used to control a wireless sensor node in a wireless sensor network comprising memory storing program code, wherein execution of said program code by said microcontroller implements a real-time operating system (RTOS) comprising:
a preemptive, priority based, non-blocking scheduler for managing task execution including task switching;a plurality of defined tasks as code sets, wherein said tasks have clearly defined start and end points and run to completion without waiting for events; andan interrupt service routine configured to respond to events and in response to those events to schedule tasks for execution such that at the end of said interrupt service routine said scheduler determines if a task that was interrupted should be preempted by a newly scheduled task; wherein a single call-return stack is utilized by said scheduler common to said tasks and wherein the task resume addresses of said tasks are maintained on said single call-return stack such that said tasks are resumed in the reverse order in which they are suspended; wherein said wireless sensor node is configured to collect measurements of a plurality of parameters, to log said measurements and to trigger an alarm if said parameters are outside predetermined thresholds; and wherein said wireless sensor node is configured to communicate with a host gateway coupled to a wired network, so that said measurements are available in real-time through a local or wide-area network and wherein communication to said host is secure requiring authorization.