Toppers project

The TOPPERS Project is to develop a series of open source
real-time operating systems (RTOS) for embedded systems.The TOPPERS/JSP Kernel, which is the first product of theproject, was released two years ago and is started to beused in industries. A technological basis of the TOPPERSProject is the ITRON Specification, which is a de-facto standardreal-time kernel specification widely applied to consumerelectronics, cellular phones, and other small-scaleembedded systems in Japan.

TOPPERS Project

The TOPPERS Project is to develop a series of open sourceRTOS and related software based on the ITRON Specifications [8] . The project is initiated by us in 2000 and is nowsupported by several companies, research institutes, and individuals.We plan to incorporate the project in near future.The aims of the TOPPERS Project is as follows. At first,the existence of an open source real-time kernel can easethe problem of excessive diversity and another ITRON’sproblem of duplicated efforts that more than ten companieshave developed and are maintaining ITRON-specificationreal-time kernels independently. Another aim is to developthe next generation RTOS technology. Again, open sourcesoftware facilitates to bring development resources togetherboth from industries and academia. The last (but not least)aim is to ease the training of embedded software engineersthrough providing good education materials.

The license condition of the products of the TOPPERSProject is called the TOPPERS license, which is similar tothe BSD license condition and is much more unrestrictedthan the GNU General Public License (GPL). The basicconcept of the TOPPERS license is to promote the wideuse of the TOPPERS software while collecting informationfor claiming the contribution of the project. When an RTOSunder the TOPPERS license is embedded in a device, forexample, the developer has only to report the usage of theRTOS to the TOPPERS Project. We call this concept asreportware.

The TOPPERS/JSP Kernel, which is a real-time kernelconformant to the Standard Profile of the μITRON4.0 Specification,is the first product of the TOPPERS Project. Wehave developed the JSP Kernel as the basis of our researchand education. Based on the JSP Kernel, we are proceedingseveral research projects. The JSP Kernel is also used in theindustries for prototype development of embedded systemsand also for final products.

We are also developing RTOS with extended functionalities.One of them is the IIMP Kernel, which is an extensionof the JSP Kernel with the access protection functionof kernel objects including memory objects. Another productis the IDL Kernel, an extension of the IIMP Kernel withdynamic object creation and deletion, on which dynamicloading function has been implemented.

Another development area of the TOPPERS Project issoftware components running on the ITRON-specificationreal-time kernels. One of them is a compact TCP/IP protocolstack conforming to the ITRON TCP/IP API Specification.

Documentations

[http://www.arm-eclipse.wikidot.com ARM-ECLIPSE CONFIGURATION]

[http://www.toppers.wikidot.com TOPPERS/JSP DOCUMENTATION]

[http://www.eclipseconf.wikidot.com Eclipse Configuration for ARM]