Through steel: A ship-wide sensor mesh

Consisting of a network of battery-powered radios which plug directly into an ordinary wall socket without requiring any cabling, In:Range can be installed on even the largest vessels in a matter of a few minutes, communicating with a central hub. The energy and frequency usage would be comparable with a walkie-talkie.

“Alternatively, you could install cabling in every room of a vessel. However, who would do that? It would be hugely expensive in existing vessels,” says CEO John Roger Nesje.
Combined with small wearable wristbands for each crew member or passenger, the system can be used to track the locations of personnel, plotting their position on a ship-wide blueprint map. The system will also work overboard, rated to a distance of 1km. “Although, we have seen 3 or 4km,” Nesje adds.

The system will be invaluable in an emergency scenario, the company claims, especially in situations where ships cable networks are damaged by fire, or individual crew members are incapacitated. “If you have a fire on board, the cables will not work anymore,” he explains. “If the cabling in the midsection of the ship burns, then you have no communication between fore and aft.”

Scanreach believes that the In:Range system is affordable enough to become the norm throughout various maritime industries including oil and gas, cruise, and deepsea shipping.

“For example, a few years ago there was an accident involving Hurtigruten ferry Nordlys – a fire. Should the captain release a CO2 fire suppression system or not? The muster station, the lifeboats – these don’t know where everyone is. If somebody is still in their cabin, the CO2 could kill them.

“If you can instantly view the vessel on a map and see that everyone is in the muster station, you can release the CO2 system. If not, the fire personnel know exactly where the person is and don’t have to waste precious time searching.”

PILOT PROJECT

With a test installation on board North Sea Giant, an OSV with 120 crew on board, the system has around 100 plug-in radios around the ship. “We have coverage in every part of the ship, apart from in the individual cabins,” says Nesje, adding that In:Range could be set up in each cabin for this purpose if requested. “The map can show that there is a crew member somewhere in one of four-or-five cabins, so in an emergency situation the crew could search these cabins very quickly.”

Indicating that the installation on North Sea Giant would be in the low US$1,000s, Scanreach is positioning the system as an affordable safety measure which will be ubiquitous in a few years’ time, analogous to airbags in cars. “We have worked with the Norwegian coast guard, and they are extremely happy with the system. They have the ambition to use these on all Norwegian naval vessels,” says Nesje.

“We still only have a prototype version of the wristband – this would be some sort of Fitbit-sized wearable. Battery life is an issue with [consumer wearable] devices since they last for 5 days which is unacceptable, and you can’t have someone take their bracelet off to charge at night, otherwise, if there is an alarm that night, the device will be useless. This is not a problem for us though – we have systems which can last for 8 months.”

Scanreach is experimenting with equipping the wearables with more complex systems such as heart-rate monitoring, gas and temperature sensors. “More functions means less battery life. We need it to last for at least one shift – that’s 6 weeks.”

Suggestions for value-added uses of the technology abound, including IoT applications. As well as going live on Veracity, Nesje confirms that Scanreach is in talks with Kongsberg relating to its Kognifai platform. “Every time we talk to shipowners about this they come up with new ideas of how to use the technology,” he says.

“Some fish farming vessels have an onboard fish factory. These have lots of dangerous equipment and accidents happen very often. Instead of a wall-mounted button, what if any individual crew member could stop the machine with the press of a button on his wristband? Or, perhaps the chief engineer could have a vibration on his wristband when the engine alarm goes off.

“The system is cheap and the installation can be performed by crew in a matter of minutes – it could be used for many different purposes. We believe that will come, but for the moment we have chosen to focus on safety.”