Method and system for offloading industrial tasks in a human-machine interface panel to other devices

A human-machine-interaction (HMI) panel for interacting with industrial automation equipment, the HMI panel implemented as a special purpose computer connected to machines of the industrial automation system by a special industry communication field bus, comprising:

• a processor;
• an input/output module connected to the processor and connectable for communication with the industrial automation equipment;
• a network communications module connected to the processor and connectable for communication with offload destination resources;
• a non-transitory computer-usable medium having computer readable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations for offloading human-machine-interaction tasks of the industrial automation equipment from the processor, the operations comprising:
• classifying each human-machine-interaction task into one of at least a first task type of the industrial automation equipment and a second task type of the industrial automation equipment comprising soft real-time tasks having a penalty for finishing after a deadline and firm real-time tasks having a reward for finishing before the deadline wherein the penalty is an increasing function of a time by which the execution time exceeds the deadline, wherein the first task type and the second task type are classified according to real-time computing requirements;
• computing a schedule for execution by the human-machine-interaction panel of the first type of human-machine-interaction tasks of the industrial automation equipment;
• executing the first human-machine-interaction tasks of the industrial automation equipment according to the schedule;
• identifying offload destination resources available to communicate via the network communications module with the human-machine interaction panel, wherein the offload destination resources are separate from the human-machine-interaction panel;
• offloading the human-machine-interaction tasks of the industrial automation equipment of the second task type via the network communications module to the offload destination resources for execution by the offload destination resources;
• and
• periodically communicating via the network communications module with the offload destination resources to check a status of the offloaded human-machine-interaction tasks of the industrial automation equipment wherein all human-machine interaction tasks performed locally or remote to the human-machine interface panel are managed by the human-machine interface panel.