Erika Enterprise and RT-Druid: innovative RTOS for single- and multi-core applications

ERIKA Enterprise

ERIKA Enterprise is an innovative RTOS for small microcontrollers based on an API similar to those proposed by the OSEK/VDX Consortium.

The ERIKA Enterprise kernel implements innovative scheduling algorithms such as Fixed Priority with preemption thresholds, Stack Resource Policy (SRP), and Earliest Deadline First (EDF), which can be used to schedule tasks with real-time requirements.

ERIKA Enterprise is available in double licensing, both GPL and commercial, and has a very small footprint: typically, a minimal installation of ERIKA Enterprise consumes from 800 to 2000 bytes of code, for the implementation of a fixed priority scheduling kernel with stack sharing and binary mutexes.

RT-Druid

RT-Druid is the development environment for ERIKA Enterprise. Based on Eclipse, RT-Druid allows writing and compiling your application in a confortable environment.

Moreover, RT-Druid implements an OIL language compiler, whichg is able from an OIL specification to generate the ERIKA Enterprise configuration.

RT-Druid also handles templates, allowing the user to provide template applicatiom ready to use in the Eclipse environment.

Additional schedulability analisys tools are also available, to perform an estimation of the response time of the application tasks. 

A standalone version of RT-Druid is also available, which allows the implementation of command line development flows without the need of installing a complete Eclipse environment. 

ERIKA Enterprise, RT-Druis and support for Multicore architectures

ERIKA Enterprise and RT-Druid have explicit support for multicore architecture. Multiprocessor systems are being considered as an economically viable alternative to support this increasing computational demand. However, the usage of multiprocessor hardware in small embedded system poses problems to developers ranging from concurrency to load distribution.

Evidence solves these problems proposing OS-level solutions and tools for embedded multiprocessor-on-a-chip.

Erika Enterprise and RT-Druid have been designed to handle multiprocessor development and programming by hiding the use of multiprocessor synchronization primitives.

With multiprocessor hiding, it is possibile to seamlessly migrate application code from a single processor to multiprocessors without changing a single line of the source code. Hiding helps customers preserving their code base. Retargetting an application from single to multiprocessor architectures only requires different OIL configurations, but allows retaining the source code.