Hardware protected Message Queues will soon be available

An updated release of the HartOS API is currently undergoing beta testing and will in the coming months provide support for hardware protected generic Message Queues. The Message Queues will be capable of storing any user defined message structure, while utilizing the HartOS core’s hardware based counting semaphores for interprocess communication and consistency validation.

The first official release of the HartOS hardware based Real-Time kernel is now available for download.

HartOS is a VHDL implemented Real-Time Operating System supporting all the basic features expected from a full RTOS without sacrificing flexibility.

HartOS is implemented in three major modules, supporting Task, Interrupt and Resource Management. By implementing task, resource and interrupt management in hardware it is possible to completely remove the RTOS overhead of scheduling tasks, tick/time management, interrupt management etc.

API functions are accelerated vastly by handling them in hardware, only leaving a small API interface in software, this also serves to minimize the memory footprint.

Jitter is removed from RTOS functions as the execution in hardware is completely deterministic, and the jitter/indeterminism introduced by external asynchronous interrupts is removed by handling interrupt service routine (ISR’s) as tasks. The advantage of handling ISR’s as tasks, is that they can be prioritized and scheduled like any other task in the system. This enables high priority tasks running control loop’s and digital filters to maintain a strict period without being affected by simultaneous handling of asynchronous interrupts.