Real-time operating systems (RTOS) are used in embedded systems, industrial robots, and other applications that require timely and predictable responses. An RTOS guarantees tasks will complete within specified time constraints. There are two main types of RTOS designs - event-driven systems that change state in response to events, and time-sharing systems that switch tasks on a time schedule. Common RTOS scheduling algorithms include priority-based preemptive scheduling, round-robin scheduling, and fixed-priority scheduling. An RTOS must efficiently schedule tasks, provide interprocess communication, and prevent processes from accessing shared data simultaneously.