RIOT OS: Towards an OS for the Internet of Things

Emmanuel Baccelli (1) , Oliver Hahm (1) , Mesut Günes (2) , Matthias Wählisch (2) , Thomas Schmidt (3)

1 Inria Saclay - Ile de France
2 Institut für Informatik [Berlin]
3 Department of Mathematics [Corvallis, Oregon]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is characterized by heterogeneous devices. They range from very lightweight sensors powered by 8-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) to devices equipped with more powerful, but energy-efficient 32-bit processors. Neither traditional operating systems (OS) currently running on Internet hosts, nor a typical OS for sensor networks are capable to fulfill the diverse requirements of such a wide range of devices. To leverage the IoT, redundant development should be avoided and maintenance costs should be reduced. In this paper we revisit the requirements for an OS in the IoT. We introduce RIOT OS, an OS that explicitly considers devices with minimal resources but eases development across a wide range of devices. RIOT OS allows for standard C and C++ programming, provides multi- threading as well as real-time capabilities, and needs only a minimum of 1.5 kB of RAM.

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Emmanuel Baccelli, Oliver Hahm, Mesut Günes, Matthias Wählisch, Thomas Schmidt. RIOT OS: Towards an OS for the Internet of Things. The 32nd IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2013), Apr 2013, Turin, Italy. ⟨hal-00945122⟩