1.4 FreeRTOS So what is FreeRTOS? [ 4 ] FreeRTOS is one of the most widely used RTOS implementations in the world of embedded systems and IoT. As its name implies, FreeRTOS is open-source and free to use. Based on the previous explanation of RTOS, FreeRTOS acts as a lightweight OS that runs on a microcontroller (like the ESP32) to perform task scheduling, memory management, and inter-task communication. FreeRTOS provides an API that allows developers to: Create and manage multiple tasks that can run concurrently. Set priority scheduling so that important tasks (e.g., critical sensor readings) are always processed faster than low-priority tasks (e.g., logging). Use time-slicing and event-driven scheduling so that tasks outnumbering the available cores can still run according to their schedule.