Tech Glossary
What is VxWorks?
VxWorks is a real-time operating system (RTOS) developed by Wind River Systems. VxWorks is often used in systems that require high reliability, such as in vehicles, aircraft, medical equipment, robots and industrial automation. VxWorks includes a core system and a variety of add-on packages, all of which can be customized to the needs of the specific application. The core system includes a real-time runtime, a multitasking preemptive scheduler, a file system manager, and a TCP/IP stack. The add-on packages include support for graphical user interfaces, a web server, a database, a tool for developing and debugging applications and support for connecting to various types of peripherals. VxWorks is often compared to the Linux and Android operating systems, but there are several important differences. VxWorks is a real-time operating system, while Linux and Android are not. This means that VxWorks is better suited for applications that require high reliability and fast response times. VxWorks also has a much smaller memory footprint than Linux and Android, making it more suitable for applications running on smaller devices, such as in medical equipment or robots.