The document discusses real-time operating systems (RTOS) and FreeRTOS. It defines an RTOS as an OS intended for real-time applications that processes data without buffering delays. Popular RTOS include VxWorks, QNX Neutrino, FreeRTOS, and others. FreeRTOS is an open source RTOS kernel for embedded devices that provides task management, communication and synchronization primitives. It supports various architectures and is designed to be small, simple and provide low overhead.