A guide to selecting a real-time operating system (RTOS) for robotics applications. Covers the three tiers of real-time systems (hard, firm, soft), key performance metrics like interrupt latency, context-switch time, jitter, and priority inversion. Explains the difference between an RTOS and ROS 2 middleware, how PREEMPT_RT patches Linux for near-real-time behavior, and how micro-ROS bridges RTOSes like FreeRTOS, Zephyr, and NuttX with the ROS 2 stack. Selection criteria include deadline mapping, jitter budgeting, and worst-case failure analysis under realistic loads.
Table of contents
Robotics decision loop based on real-time tiersDeterministic scheduling: worst-case scenarios that impact selectionROS 2 in real-time decision loops25 Impressions