Emergency vehicle signal control system

A method for controlling functional warning units on an emergency vehicle containing multiple functional warning units that are controlled by a central controller and multiple remote controllers remote from the central controller that are connected to the controller and to the functional warning units, the method comprising:

• generating an input relating to a desired state of the functional warning units in the central controller;
• encoding the desired state of the functional warning units into a packet in the central controller;
• transmitting the encoded packet from the central controller to each of the remote controllers, wherein each remote controller is functionally connected to at least one of the functional warning units;
• parsing the desired state of each of the functional warning units in the encoded packet at each of the remote controllers;
• and
• setting the desired state of each of the functional warning units at the remote controllers based on the parsed encoded packet
• wherein encoding the desired state of the functional warning units into a packet includes encoding a flash pattern for one or more functional warning units as a predetermined sequence of ON and OFF states in consecutive packets.

An emergency vehicle control system comprising:

• one or more functional warning units positioned in various positions in an emergency vehicle;
• a central controller configured to generate a desired state of the functional warning units and encode the desired state into a packet and encode a flash pattern for the one or more functional warning units as a predetermined sequence of ON and OFF states in consecutive packets;
• multiple remote controllers, each of which is functionally connected to at least one of the functional warning units;
• a functional connection between the central controller and the multiple remote controllers and configured to transmit the encoded packet from the central controller to each of the remote controllers;
• wherein the remote controllers are configured to parse the desired state of each of the functional warning units in the encoded packet and set the state of each of the functional warning units based on the parsed encoded packet.