Installing a CCTV camera at the bow of a ship should be a small job. Mount it. Power it. Connect it. Move on.
Ships are rarely that cooperative. Even though a 300-metre ship may be an engineering marvel, to radio waves it is a floating Faraday cage.
If the camera needs to send data to the stern, someone may have to snake a cable across hundreds of metres into spaces never meant to host new visitors.
For as long as ships have relied on wired safety systems, there has been an interest in reducing the need for cabling. According to Thobias Ernfridsson, Chief Technology Officer at Consilium Safety Group, there are good reasons for that.
“Cables are expensive,” he says, listing the raw ingredients: plastics, copper, aluminium – each a cost, a weight, a complication.
Then he taps his wristwatch. “Worse, installing them consumes the one thing shipowners value most. Uptime.”
The hull as wire
Yet the very bones of a ship pose a challenge. Steel bulkheads and thick compartments block traditional wireless signals, making reliable communication through the air almost impossible.
The answer, it turns out, is not to battle the steel, but to make it work for you.
Surface-wave technology does just that. It guides electromagnetic waves along the ship’s metal skin instead of through the air. The concept is not new, but making it work on real ships has proven stubbornly elusive.
Traditional systems demanded spotless, bare-metal components, which are rarely found on ships that have weathered years at sea. A key step came from Seoul-based company Sunny Wave Tech, whose Aurora resonator technology works reliably regardless of what covers the ship.
“It can work even when the hull is painted, oxidised or rusted,” Ernfridsson says.
This is where Consilium steps in, turning this science into something useful for onboard safety.
In partnership with Samsung Heavy Industries and Sunny Wave, Consilium has developed a new generation of battery-powered smoke and heat detectors. These devices talk wirelessly to central safety panels, using the ship’s own metal as their pathway.
The system has earned Approval in Principle (AiP) from ABS, marking a step towards certification.
“We have developed detectors adapted to use this technology. The detectors at one end connects to our safety panel at the other, using wireless data transfer through the ship’s structure instead of cables, says Ernfridsson and adds:
” We have started with smoke and heat detectors but will also develop gas and fire detectors that can communicate wirelessly”.
These detectors fit seamlessly with both new and existing Consilium systems, allowing installation without extensive rewiring. They can also integrate with third-party safety systems, giving operators more flexibility to upgrade or expand their detection infrastructure.
Mind the gap
The technology offers value both in newbuild projects and later in a vessel’s lifecycle.
“The more complex the vessel, the more systems it carries, and the greater the value of this solution. On a large LNG carrier, each metre of cable removed saves installation time, reduces weight and increases cargo capacity,” Ernfridsson says.
The benefits also extend to ships already in service.
“Once a ship is in use, adding extra cabling is like trying to thread spaghetti through concrete,” Ernfridsson says. “When a ship is operating and needs to expand a system, add coverage, or put a device in a hard-to-reach place, this technology lets us send data between those points with less disruption.”
Ernfridsson sees an even bigger opportunity in how the wireless system can extend the infrastructure Consilium already uses.
“You could run our cable halfway through a ship on existing infrastructure, then switch to wireless to cover a new area without cable,” he says.
“We fill in the gaps and can add temporary monitoring for certain cargo and expand safety networks without removing bulkheads. The result is lower installation costs, faster upgrades and more uptime.”
Looking ahead
Ernfridsson sees possible use in vehicle transport. As the global transition to electric mobility accelerates, Pure Car and Truck Carriers (PCTCs) load thousands of EVs simultaneously.
Monitoring battery health and fire risk across multiple enclosed decks is a top priority for fleet operators.
“Conventional wireless works reasonably well on open vehicle decks,” says Ernfridsson. “The challenge comes when you need to communicate between decks, where the solid metal floors make signal transmission incredibly hard.”
By using the metal decks as a signal path, surface-wave technology could make it easier to deploy larger numbers of sensors across the ship to monitor EV batteries in real time during transport.
For now, the technology is entering large-scale, rigorous testing. Consilium and its partners need to demonstrate that the system can withstand harsh sea conditions, including temperature swings, vibration and strict EMC requirements, before a full commercial launch.
“We need to run these trials on large ships, with more detectors and longer periods. No data lost. No alarm unheard, Ernfridsson says.” For us, leadership in safety technology means proving reliability before making promises. Only when the system behaves, hour after salty hour, will we call it trustworthy.”
