Real-time operating systems

Abstract Real time applications are nowadays of paramount importance in areas so widely apart as telecommunications, manufacturing, banking, embedded systems for commercial and military use. The shortage of good tools which enable real-time software (applications) to be performant in execution and flexible for evolution leads much too frequently to accelerated obsoleteness of the software and to repetitive investments. Commercially available real-time operating systems (RTOS) are one of the tools that help to keep real-time software abreast with the fast pace of the hardware industry. Main features of the RTOS are presented, the advantages of off-the-shelf RTOS components such as Realtime Craft TM are stressed and standardization issues are discussed.