OSS + ELC EU 2026

In industrial and real-time applications, strict timing constraints can exceed the capabilities of standard Linux systems—even when enhanced with the PREEMPT_RT patch. As a result, developers increasingly deploy real-time operating systems (RTOS) on application-class cores (e.g., ARM Cortex-A) to meet deterministic requirements.
This session presents a comparative study of latency characteristics measured on identical hardware platforms running Linux with PREEMPT_RT, Zephyr, and FreeRTOS. We first analyze how the PREEMPT_RT patch impacts kernel latency across different workload scenarios, highlighting both its strengths and practical limitations. We then extend the comparison to RTOS environments, focusing on scheduling latency and interrupt (IRQ) handling behavior under equivalent conditions.
The results are based on systematic benchmarking and provide insight into latency trade-offs, determinism, and suitability of each system for industrial workloads. We will also provide industrial specific examples of target use-cases, where this performance numbers are key parameter.