Xenomai-Implementing a RTOS emulation framework on GNU / Linux

Generally speaking, the Xenomai technology first aims at helping application designers relying on traditional RTOS to move as smoothly as possible to a GNU/ Linux-based execution environment, without having to rewrite their application entirely. This paper discusses the motivations for proposing this framework, the general observations concerning the traditional RTOS directing this technology, and some indepth details about its implementation. The Xenomai project has been launched in August 2001. It has merged in 2003 with the RTAI project [http://www.gna.org/projects/rtai/] to produce an industrial-grade real-time Free Software platform for GNU/Linux called RTAI/fusion, on top of Xenomai's abstract RTOS core. Eventually, the RTAI/fusion effort became independent from RTAI in 2005 as the xenomai project [http://www.gna.org/projects/xenomai/]. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Other trademarks cited in this paper are the property of their respective owner.