Open License Society ______Only software can be perfect

Open License Society is now releasing OpenComRTOS. Developed using formal techniques for modeling and  verification, the RTOS kernel itself  can be seen as a new generation of Real-Time Operating Systems. It implements the runtime environment of Open License Society's systems engineering methodology where the architecture is defined using a formalised paradigm called "Interacting Entities". While fairly universal, it shines through its elegant simplicity. Its concepts have allowed us to elevate OpenComRTOS to  a new concurrent programming paradigm, in particular suitable for real-time embedded systems, be they single processor, multi-core, parallel processinbg or heterogenous distributed systems.

OpenComRTOS has many innovative and break-through features not available from any other RTOS:

The code is extremely small and hence performant:

• minimum code size about 1 KByte for a single processor minimised implementation;
• code size around 5 KBytes for a fully-featured multi-processor implementation;
• data requirements are very minimal, starting from a few 100 bytes of RAM.

Nevertheless, the functionality is rich:

• Prioritised preemptive task scheduling with priority inheritance support;
• Hubs, Events, Semaphores, FIFO, Port, Mailbox, Resources, Memory Pools, Packet Pools;
• All services are provided in waiting, non-waiting and waiting with time-out functionality;
• All services operate fully transparently across a network of processing nodes;
• Capability to operate across heterogenous networks;
• Seamless integration of host-nodes running another OS;
• Capability to support third party APIs (might be restricted to single processor).

The complete RTOS is written in ANSI-C (MISRA compliant) and very easy to port to other targets. Hence, it is the RTOS of choice for applications where performance must be achieved with a minimum of memory and processing resources. Hence, it can be used with very small microcontrollers, multi-core processors, multi-processing and even widely distributed networks can be easily programmed in fairly transparent way.

The innovative features of OpenComRTOS don't stop here.

From the functional point view, its architecture is unique and completely based on packet switching.

The benefits of this approach are multiple:

• Safety
• Security
• Scalability
• Extensibility

In addtion, OpenComRTOS innovates further. A visual programming environment, called VE, allows to develop an application for single as well as for multi-processor target systems, without writing a single line of code, except inserting the application specific algorithmic functions. The diagram editor provides a seamless path from modeling to executables and turns OpenComRTOS into a novel type of concurrent programming environment. Further support includes a graphical event tracer and reverse modeling of source code. More modelling modules are under development.

Finally, Open License Society has innovated on the licensing front. Target specific versions are available as source code licenses. The Windows kernel version that acts as a reference platform as well as a host node, is available under an eternal shareware license. This version also acts as the modelling simulator when developing embedded applications (a Linux version is planned). The complete OpenComRTOS development environment is also availabe under an innovative "Open License" agreement. This includes not only the source code of the kernel, system generation utilities and the VE Visual Programming environment, it also includes all formal models, design documents, test suites, etc. Hence, customers can port and extend OpenComRTOS at will. They can also create binary licenses of VE for internal use of for their customers based on a per seat licensing fee. The RTOS runtime kernel itself is royalty free.

Current targets to be released or in development: MLX16, AVR, Sparc, MicroBlaze, ARM.

For more information contact us at: info.request (@) openlicensesociety.org or use the contact form.

Below a screenshot of the visual application editor and a screenshot of a program execution trace.