Patent ID: 8281312

Claim:
A system for enabling automated task preemption, the system comprising: a plurality of multifunctional devices being operatively associated with at least one controller, each one of the plurality of multifunctional devices having a plurality of functional capabilities and a processing module configured to: (i) separate tasks requiring the plurality of functional capabilities of the plurality of multifunctional devices into intensive tasks requiring a first category of capabilities having a first loss tolerance and requiring approximately all resources and flexible tasks requiring a second category of capabilities having a second loss tolerance greater than the first loss tolerance and being capable of relinquishing resources, where the intensive tasks have a higher processing priority than the flexible tasks; and (ii) selectively process the intensive tasks before the flexible tasks regardless of arrival times of the tasks requiring the plurality of capabilities to the at least one controller; wherein the flexible tasks that are preempted by the intensive tasks are rescheduled to be processed based on time-of-day activity schemes to ensure that all tasks associated with the multifunctional devices are addressed within a predetermined time period of completion in a given time period.