As promised yesterday, here’s an example sketch which uses the ChibiOS RTOS to create a separate task for keeping an LED blinking at 2 Hz, no matter what else the code is doing:

#include <ChibiOS_AVR.h>

static WORKING_AREA(waThread1, 50);

void Thread1 () {
  const uint8_t LED_PIN = 9;
  pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);
  
  while (1) {
    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW);
    chThdSleepMilliseconds(100);
    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);
    chThdSleepMilliseconds(400);
  }
}

void setup () {
  chBegin(mainThread);
}

void mainThread () {
  chThdCreateStatic(waThread1, sizeof (waThread1),
                    NORMALPRIO + 2, (tfunc_t) Thread1, 0);
  while (true)
    loop();
}

void loop () {
  delay(1000);
}

There are several things to note about this approach:

• there’s now a “Thread1” task, which does all the LED blinking, even the LED pin setup
• each task needs a working area for its stack, this will consume a bit of memory
• calls to delay() are forbidden inside threads, they need to play nice and go to sleep
• only a few changes are needed, compared to the original setup() and loop() code
• chBegin() is what starts the RTOS going, and mainThread() takes over control
• to keep things similar to what Arduino does, I decided to call loop() when idling

Note that inside loop() there is a call to delay(), but that’s ok: at some point, the RTOS runs out of other things to do, so we might as well make the main thread similar to what the Arduino does. There is also an idle task – it runs (but does nothing) whenever no other tasks are asking for processor time.

Note that despite the delay call, the LED still blinks in the proper rate. You’re looking at a real multitasking “kernel” running inside the ATmega328 here, and it’s preemptive, which simply means that the RTOS can (and will) decide to break off any current activity, if there is something more important that needs to be done first. This includes suddenly disrupting that delay() call, and letting Thread1 run to keep the LEDs blinking.

In case you’re wondering: this compiles to 3,120 bytes of code – ChibiOS is really tiny.

Stay tuned for details on how to get this working in your projects… it’s very easy!