Patent ID: 7778635

Claim:
An apparatus for centrally controlling wide-area lighting at a plurality of remote, widely-dispersed different sites to be illuminated comprising: a) a plurality of wide area lighting systems each on-site at a different site, each on-site wide area lighting system comprising; i. a plurality of arrays of lighting fixtures; ii. each array comprising a set of high intensity light sources and ballast circuits adapted to be switched to connect or disconnect to a relatively high voltage power source; b) a central control system comprising: i. an off-site central controller including a database of events and conditions related to arrays of each wide-area lighting system and a component adapted to issue data related to a function of the corresponding wide-area lighting system and an event or condition for the wide-area lighting system or an array of the lighting system, the database of events and conditions for each wide-area lighting system being changeable at the off-site central controller; ii. a plurality of on-site remote devices, one for each wide-area lighting system, a said remote device operably connected to each set of light sources and ballast circuits of arrays of the wide-area lighting system; iii. a communication link adapted to communicate data from the central controller to any remote device of a corresponding wide-area lighting system of the plurality of remote controllers according to the database of events and conditions at the off-site central controller; so that the database of the off-site central controller, can control one or more functions of arrays of remote, widely dispersed lighting systems.