Amazon FreeRTOS

IoT operating system for microcontrollers

See Amazon FreeRTOS in action at Embedded World. Visit us in Hall 3A - 525. Learn more about Amazon FreeRTOS from Richard Barry in the Exhibitor's Forum.

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Amazon FreeRTOS (a:FreeRTOS) is an operating system for microcontrollers that makes small, low-power edge devices easy to program, deploy, secure, connect, and manage. Amazon FreeRTOS is based on the FreeRTOS kernel, a popular open source operating system for microcontrollers, and extends it with software libraries that make it easy to securely connect your small, low-power devices to AWS cloud services like AWS IoT Core or to more powerful edge devices running AWS Greengrass.

A microcontroller (MCU) is a single chip containing a simple processor that can be found in many devices, including appliances, sensors, fitness trackers, industrial automation, and automobiles. Many of these small devices could benefit from connecting to the cloud or locally to other devices. For example, smart electricity meters need to connect to the cloud to report on usage and building security systems need to communicate locally so that a door will unlock when you badge in. Microcontrollers have limited compute power and memory capacity and typically perform simple, functional tasks. Microcontrollers frequently run operating systems which do not have built in functionality to connect to local networks or the cloud, making IoT applications a challenge. Amazon FreeRTOS helps solve this problem by providing both the core operating system (to run the edge device) as well as software libraries that make it easy to securely connect to the cloud (or other edge devices) so you can collect data from them for IoT applications and take action.

To get started, you can use the Amazon FreeRTOS console to configure and download Amazon FreeRTOS for your device. The Amazon FreeRTOS Qualification Program gives you the confidence that the microcontroller used in your device fully supports the Amazon FreeRTOS features and capabilities. Amazon FreeRTOS is open source and there is no charge to use it. To learn more about getting started, click here.

What is Amazon FreeRTOS?

Benefits

Based on the FreeRTOS Kernel

Amazon FreeRTOS is open source and is based on the FreeRTOS kernel, the most popular real-time operating system for microcontrollers. With Amazon FreeRTOS, you can take advantage of the large ecosystem of existing tools developed for the FreeRTOS kernel. If you are already using the FreeRTOS kernel on your existing devices, you can choose to use Amazon FreeRTOS and take advantage of the functionality provided by the additional libraries, or continue to use just the kernel operating system.

Easily Program, Deploy, and Manage Low Power Connected Devices

Amazon FreeRTOS includes software libraries that make it easy to program commonly needed IoT capabilities into your device, including libraries that help configure devices to a local network using common connectivity options like Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Amazon FreeRTOS also includes an over-the-air (OTA) update feature, now in beta, to remotely update devices with feature enhancements or security patches.

Secure Data and Device Connections

Amazon FreeRTOS comes with libraries to help secure device data and connections, including support for data encryption and key management. Amazon FreeRTOS includes support for Transport Layer Security (TLS v1.2) to help your devices connect securely to the cloud. Amazon FreeRTOS also has a code signing feature to ensure your device code is not compromised during deployment and OTA updates (now in beta).

Connect to the Cloud or to a Local Edge Device

Amazon FreeRTOS devices can connect directly to cloud services like AWS IoT Core, or to a local edge device, like AWS Greengrass devices. By connecting Amazon FreeRTOS devices to a Greengrass Core device, you can continue to communicate with the device even if it loses connection to the cloud.

Broad Hardware and Technology Ecosystem

Amazon FreeRTOS gives you the flexibility to easily build IoT solutions on a variety of chipsets and supports a variety of architectures, such as ARM and MIPS. For new devices, you can choose from a variety of qualified chipsets from trusted providers, including Microchip, NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and others from the Amazon FreeRTOS Qualification Program.

How It Works

Amazon FreeRTOS provides everything you need to easily program connected microcontroller-based devices and collect data from them for IoT applications. You can get started by choosing a microcontroller that fully supports Amazon FreeRTOS features and capabilities from trusted providers like Microchip, NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments or others from the Amazon FreeRTOS Qualification Program. Then, you can use the Amazon FreeRTOS console to select the relevant software libraries for your devices and download the complete Amazon FreeRTOS operating system, including the device and application specific libraries. To learn more about all the options for getting started, click here.

Once Amazon FreeRTOS is deployed to your devices, you can securely connect them to cloud services like AWS IoT Core, or to a local edge device, and update them remotely using the OTA update feature (now in beta).

Use Cases

Industrial Applications

Industrial customers utilize microcontroller-based devices that generate data about business critical workloads. Industrial sensors, actuators, pumps, and components of automation utilize microcontrollers because they are low cost, low power, and can perform real-time actions. For instance, a single pump on an oil rig is controlled by a microcontroller and has the potential to completely shut down production if there is a failure. Amazon FreeRTOS enables these customers to collect data on system performance and stress through a direct connection to the cloud, and to take real-time critical, local actions with AWS Greengrass to prevent such disruptive outages.

B2B Solutions

Microcontrollers are commonly used in B2B commercial devices because of their low power requirements and low cost. For example, security equipment manufacturers are increasingly adding connectivity to microcontroller-based devices like commercial door locks and sensor systems. Amazon FreeRTOS allows these companies to accelerate the release of new connected products by simplifying the design and development process. Development is simplified because the Amazon FreeRTOS Qualification Program provides a list of qualified microcontrollers and the Amazon FreeRTOS console lets you download the source code specific to that microcontroller and use case. These manufacturers can also securely apply patches to commercial door locks with the OTA update feature (now in beta).

Consumer Products

Amazon FreeRTOS can help consumer products companies like appliance, wearable technology, or smart lighting manufacturers, standardize microcontroller-based device development, delivery, and maintenance across a wide variety of products and models. Amazon FreeRTOS provides a single microcontroller operating system that can support a wide range of microcontroller hardware of varying power and capacity. This lets these companies focus on product innovation instead of managing the complexity of software development across multiple product lines. Amazon FreeRTOS will also provide the ability to securely update features of existing consumer products in the field with the OTA update feature (now in beta).

Customer Stories

“Amazon FreeRTOS makes it easier for Allegion to rapidly innovate new features for our connected products, such as our Schlage electronic locks, and move easily between hardware platforms. We can focus on our core strengths, developing innovative safety and security products, knowing that Amazon FreeRTOS will make integration reliable and predictable.”

- Todd Graves, Allegion Senior Vice President of Engineering and Technology

Amazon FreeRTOS enables the quick integration of embedded hardware with the IoT cloud. New features that have been added to the FreeRTOS kernel, including the secure code-signed OTA firmware update feature, enable performance entirely with the MQTT protocol rather than having to manage multiple ports, sockets and protocols. The Amazon FreeRTOS libraries help to reduce initial development time so that Allegion (Schlage) can focus on product features that add customer value for their security solutions.

“Amazon FreeRTOS is an exciting leap forward for our business and our customers. Dev teams can now focus their energy on the application and not the plumbing, messaging, or security. Instead, they choose the board, the chip, and connect to AWS IoT seamlessly.”

- Seb Chakraborty, CTO

Centrica Connected Home (Hive) sees Amazon FreeRTOS as an enabler for accelerating product development cycles for new connected microcontroller-based devices such as the Hive Leak Sensor. Compared to the bespoke firmware technologies that Centrica Connected Home used in their previous sensors, Amazon FreeRTOS can accelerate time-to-market given the significant reduction in development effort required to securely connect to AWS IoT, and to evaluate multiple chipsets, since the same code can now run across many chipsets. Centrica Connected Home also anticipates a potential reduction in operational costs by utilizing AWS managed services such as the secure OTA update feature using code signing.

“We have been evaluating AWS Greengrass and Amazon FreeRTOS technologies as part of a proof-of-concept project and, in a short time, these technologies enabled us to securely connect Honeywell systems over a proximal network allowing them to communicate with very low latency in the absence of an Internet connection. This technology could help us on board third party products into our ecosystem. AWS Greengrass' ability to run analytics at the edge is particularly interesting for multiple use cases for us.”

- Aravind Padmanabhan, Vice President, IoT Platforms & Innovation

Honeywell is demonstrating a proof-of-concept (POC) developed by the Innovation team using AWS Greengrass and Amazon FreeRTOS technologies. This POC enabled Honeywell to quickly prototype a system demonstration using their Lyric T5 Wi-Fi thermostat, a Honeywell residential security system and a variety of external sensors. Key customer benefits include – establishing proximal networks rapidly & conducting edge analytics. This is not a commercially available offering, but demonstrates the feasibility of using AWS’ new IoT services for this solution.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory robots need to work in harsh environments, often on the edge of the known Universe. By using AWS edge computing and Amazon FreeRTOS, JPL built a diverse robotic swarm prototype that uses different types of robots to execute a difficult task. Amazon Free RTOS enabled JPL to build and incorporate new, different, and more powerful miniature robots much faster than before, all on extremely constrained compute hardware.