FreeRTOS & Real-Time Systems (Pro Course 2025) – Fast & Reliable Firmware

Course Overview

FreeRTOS & Real-Time Systems (Industry Ready) is a hands-on journey from simple superloops to deterministic, production-grade firmware. Unlike many courses that stop at blinking LEDs or basic tasks, this training pushes you to engineer systems that hold up under real-world deadlines, jitter, and fault conditions.

You’ll learn how to structure applications with tasks, priorities, queues, semaphores/mutexes, timers, and safe ISR-to-task pathways. Along the way, you’ll discover how to tune latency and jitter, harden your system with watchdogs, static allocation, overflow/malloc hooks, and use trace tools to prove timing behavior under heavy load.

By the end, you’ll deliver a trace-proven capstone project—an IoT edge controller, mobile robot, or automotive-style lift controller—complete with documented task priorities, stack budgets, and verification evidence. This gives you not just code, but a portfolio artifact hiring teams look for in embedded engineers.

👉 Also check out our Embedded C & STM32 Fundamentals Course to strengthen your prerequisites before diving into this advanced RTOS journey.

What You’ll Learn

• Model real-time workloads with tasks, priorities, and scheduling (preemptive/cooperative).

• Build safe synchronization using queues, event groups, semaphores, and priority-inheriting mutexes.

• Implement ISR-to-task flows with FromISR() APIs, stream/message buffers, and DMA completions.

• Achieve stable periodicity using software timers and vTaskDelayUntil(); measure and analyze jitter.

• Engineer for reliability with static allocation, watchdogs, overflow/malloc hooks, and fault dumps.

• Reduce energy with tickless idle and validate wake-up latency.

• Architect non-blocking drivers and an MQTT client task with reconnect and watchdog strategies.

• Capture runtime/trace data using Tracealyzer or SEGGER SystemView to justify design choices.

• (Optional) Add LittleFS/FATFS with safe, mutexed access and flash-wear awareness.

• Document a professional capstone with diagrams, stack budgets, traces, and test reports.

Prerequisites

• Solid C (pointers, volatile/const, bitfields).

• Bare-metal MCU basics (GPIO, timers, interrupts).

• A dev board: STM32F4/F7/H7, ESP32, or RP2040.

• Tools: STM32CubeIDE / ESP-IDF / VSCode + CMake, FreeRTOS Kernel, logic analyzer (recommended).

Who This Course Is For

• Junior–mid embedded engineers targeting IoT, robotics, or automotive roles.

• Firmware developers transitioning from superloop to RTOS-based architectures.

• Teams needing deterministic behavior with measurable latency/jitter and robust fault handling.

Projects & Assessments

• Labs: Task scheduling, mutexed peripherals, timers, ISR deferral, MQTT tasking, tickless idle.

• Diagnostics: Run-time stats, trace capture, priority-inversion detection.

• Capstone Projects:

  • IoT Edge Controller: PID loop + MQTT, <5 ms jitter

  • Mobile Robot: encoder ISR → queue, kinematics, emergency stop ISR path

  • Automotive Lift: anti-pinch <10 ms response, watchdog strategy

Deliverables include: task/resource diagrams, stack budgets, trace evidence, MISRA compliance snippets, and fault-injection tests—professional-level proof of your RTOS design.

Tools & Hardware

• Boards: STM32F407/411/746, ESP32, RP2040

• Sensors: IMU, encoders, INA219 current sense, distance sensor

• Optional Tracing: Percepio Tracealyzer, SEGGER SystemView, SWO/ITM

Why This Course Stands Out

• Determinism over demos: measure, don’t guess.

• Industry-style documentation and review checklists.

• Portfolio-ready capstones that translate into job interviews and project discussions.

• Designed for engineers who want real production skills, not toy examples.

🔹 External References (DoFollow)

• FreeRTOS Official Site

• STM32 + FreeRTOS Docs

Career Benefits

This course goes beyond coding exercises—it prepares you for real-world embedded roles in IoT, robotics, and automotive industries. You’ll graduate with a trace-proven project portfolio that shows hiring managers you can design for determinism, reliability, and low-power operation. Skills like priority-inversion handling, watchdog integration, and power-aware scheduling directly translate to job interviews and technical assessments. Whether you’re aiming for your first embedded role or upskilling for senior firmware positions, this course helps you stand out with industry-recognized practices and documentation quality.

FAQ

Q: Do I need prior RTOS experience?
No. If you’re comfortable with C programming and basic microcontroller development, you’ll be ready to follow along.

Q: Which boards are best for this course?
We recommend the STM32F4 series, ESP32, or RP2040, since they provide good FreeRTOS support and community examples.

Q: Will I learn how to debug timing issues?
Yes. You’ll use trace tools like Tracealyzer and SystemView to measure latency, jitter, and CPU usage in real time.

Q: Is there a final project?
Yes. You’ll build one of three capstone projects—an IoT edge controller, mobile robot, or automotive lift controller—complete with professional documentation.