US Patent 9002313 Fully integrated light bar

An emergency system for a vehicle integrates many disparate equipment into single housing. In one embodiment of the invention, the emergency system is a light bar. The light bar houses various modules for monitoring and responding to events. Example modules include license plate recognition systems and chemical agent detection sensors. The light bar also houses at least one transceiver for wirelessly connecting the light bar to a wide area network, allowing the modules in the light bar to communicate data to and from a remote site. A data terminal in the vehicle is connected to the light bar and receives and displays data to the vehicle operate generated by the modules in the light bar and also from data received over the network.