Early Detection


A fire being detected in its early stages is relatively rare. However, a Norwegian company called ScanReach might offer a solution. Its new technology, called In:Sense, features a radio signal that can travel through steel with unique efficacy. A low-cost, temperature- sensor array throughout the vessel’s cargo area, requiring no cabling – an arrangement unique to ScanReach – would give an up-to-the-minute readout of hold temperatures, ensuring that any fire could at least be identified and attacked in its nascent phase.


ScanReach’s Chief Business Development Officer, Jacob Grieg Eide, notes that, thanks to the high cost of cabling, an equivalent network would hitherto have been prohibitively expensive and simply wouldn’t be considered. It would most likely be severed in a fire anyway.


“Expensive and complicated cable systems are now obsolete,” he says. “Our onboard wireless meshed network enables secure connectivity throughout the steel structure of ships and offshore units, and our system has already been successfully tried and tested through our cooperation with North Sea Shipping. Last April we installed a system with a meshed network


of more than 100 microsensors and 120 personnel tags throughout the North Sea Giant, one of the world’s most complex subsea construction vessels. The results have been great.”


ScanReach’s system has various applications and was originally conceived to keep track of crew and passengers in the event of an evacuation. “The reaction of marine insurance experts to this technology has been overwhelming,” he says. “Once DNV GL has signed off on the technology in its generic form, we will proceed with marketing In:Sense without delay. It is relatively cheap and takes just hours to install. This could be carried out during a port call as a ship lay alongside.”


Article author: UK based freelance maritime writer Charlie Bartlett


This article was originally published in The Maritime Executive May/June 2019 edition and is presented here with their kind permission.


The Report • March 2020 • Issue 91 | 49


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