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| title | date | author | draft | layout | tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Embedded Basics | 2020-07-06T00:00:00 | Felix Queißner | false | tutorial.html |
Embedded Basics
In this tutorial, you'll learn the absolute basics of the embedded world. If you have already experience with embedded systems and/or electronics, this chapter probably doesn't provide anything new to you.
Prerequisites
None! This is your entry point into the embedded world!
Contents
What are embedded systems?
Wikipedia does a good job defining embedded systems with this opener:
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system.
So at the end of the day, if you are adding any sort of computation to some object who's main purpose is not being a computer, it's an embedded system.
Some examples of Embedded systems:
- cars
- industrial control systems
- mars rovers
- digital thermometer
Real time
An important characteristic that's often required for an embedded system is "real time". This is simply the ability for the system to respond to an input within a hard deadline, Eg. automatic breaks for a car. A general operating system like Linux is not suitable for these applications because it uses time sharing when scheduling tasks/programs, and unreliably responds to important signals.