Real-Time For the Masses, Step 1: Programming API and Static Priority SRP Kernel Primitives

Lightweight Real-Time Operating Systems have gained widespread use in implementing embedded software on lightweight nodes. However, bare metal solutions are chosen, e. g., when the reactive (interrupt-driven) paradigm better matches the programmer's intent, when the OS features are not needed, or when the OS overhead is deemed too large. Moreover, other approaches are used when real-time guarantees are required. Establishing real-time and resource guarantees typically requires expert knowledge in the field, as no turn-key solutions are available to the masses. In this paper we set out to bridge the gap between bare metal solutions and traditional Real-Time OS paradigms. Our goal is to meet the intuition of the programmer and at the same time provide a resource-efficient (w.r.t. CPU and memory) implementation with established properties, such as bounded memory usage and guaranteed response times. We outline a roadmap for Real-Time For the Masses (RTFM) and report on the first step: an intuitive, platform-independent programming API backed by an efficient Stack Resource Policy-based scheduler and a tool for kernel configuration and basic resource and timing analysis.