Wireless Below Deck: How ScanReach Is Redefining Maritime Safety and Data Infrastructure

Bergen-based ScanReach is replacing traditional cabling with resilient wireless networks that work below deck. From real-time personnel tracking to a flexible data layer for offshore wind and shipping, its platform is redefining maritime safety and infrastructure.

For decades, the maritime industry has relied on steel, cables, and physical infrastructure as the backbone of onboard systems. Yet as vessels become more digitised, connected, and data-driven, the limitations of hardwired architecture are becoming increasingly apparent. Retrofitting older tonnage is costly and disruptive, while even newbuilds struggle with the complexity and rigidity of traditional cabling.

Against this backdrop, Bergen-based ScanReach has quietly positioned itself at the centre of a fundamental shift: replacing large parts of wired onboard infrastructure with resilient, maritime-grade wireless networks. What began as a solution to one of shipping’s most persistent safety challenges—knowing where people are onboard—has evolved into a broader data and connectivity platform underpinning safety, operations, and future digitalisation.

Speaking to SeaNews, ScanReach CEO Sven Brooks outlined how the company’s technology, strategy, and philosophy are converging to support a new era of maritime IoT.

From Location Awareness to Infrastructure Platform

Founded in Bergen in 2015, ScanReach has been devoted to wireless technology from the outset. The company spent its early years developing a system capable of operating reliably inside steel vessels—an environment long considered hostile to wireless connectivity. After several years of development and testing, ScanReach’s technology became commercially deployable around 2021.

Brooks, who joined the company in 2022 after a 25-year career spanning navigation systems, satcoms, and maritime digital platforms, describes ScanReach today as a deep-tech organisation. All core development— hardware, software, and system design—is carried out in-house in Norway, a deliberate decision driven by cybersecurity, data protection, and supply-chain resilience.

“Our starting point was very simple,” Brooks explains. “If you want to improve safety, you first need to know where people are.”

That insight led to the development of Connect POB (Persons On Board), ScanReach’s flagship service. Using a low-frequency wireless mesh network and wearable devices, the system provides real-time awareness of personnel location and movement onboard vessels and offshore assets. Crucially, it works below deck, across steel structures, and without extensive rewiring.

Over time, however, the company realised that the same infrastructure enabling personnel tracking could be used to collect, transport, and contextualise a wide range of operational data.

Solving the “Below-Deck” Data Problem

Much of the maritime digitalisation narrative has focused on ship-to-shore connectivity. With the advent of high-bandwidth satellite services, that challenge is increasingly well addressed. According to Brooks, the bigger problem lies elsewhere.

“The most valuable data on a vessel isn’t always on the bridge,” he says. “It’s often buried deep inside the ship —generators, pumps, cargo spaces, machinery rooms. Getting that data out traditionally requires extensive cabling, which is expensive, time-consuming, and often impractical.”

ScanReach addresses this through a maritime-grade, sub-gigahertz wireless mesh network designed specifically for steel environments. Unlike conventional wireless systems, the signal propagates along steel structures, allowing data to move vertically and horizontally throughout the vessel without drilling through decks or opening cable trunks.

Mesh architecture also brings resilience. If a node fails or is removed, the network automatically reroutes data through other nodes, eliminating single points of failure—a characteristic Brooks believes is increasingly being recognised by regulators and classification societies.

Offshore Wind: Proving Ground Under Pressure

While ScanReach’s technology is applicable across multiple segments, offshore wind has emerged as its most significant market to date—and its most demanding proving ground.

Personnel transfers in offshore wind operations represent one of the highest-risk activities at sea. Vessels operate in harsh conditions, often with a constantly changing mix of crew and third-party technicians boarding and disembarking at turbines. Maintaining real-time awareness of who is where, under what conditions, and for how long is critical.

In this environment, Connect POB has become ScanReach’s largest revenue driver. Brooks notes that approximately one in two newbuild offshore wind vessels is now equipped with the company’s technology.

Recent platform enhancements include automatic turbine detection and gangway data sharing. By combining vessel GPS data with known turbine locations, the system can automatically identify when a vessel is alongside a specific turbine and track personnel transfers without manual reporting. This data can be shared with wind farm operators, vessel owners, and other stakeholders to provide end-to-end visibility of operations.

“The goal is to remove human uncertainty during the most critical moments,” Brooks explains. “Transfers are where risk peaks, and that’s exactly where digital situational awareness delivers the most value.

Beyond Safety: A Flexible Data Layer

Although safety remains central to ScanReach’s value proposition, the company has intentionally positioned itself as infrastructure rather than analytics. This allows ScanReach to complement, rather than replace, existing data collection systems, edge devices or specialised software solutions.

ScanReach collects and transports data but does not dictate how it is analysed. Instead, it provides extensive APIs, allowing vessel operators to integrate data into their own onboard systems, cloud platforms, or thirdparty software—whether for performance optimisation, cargo monitoring, or regulatory reporting.

This open approach reflects a broader industry shift away from data silos and proprietary ecosystems. Brooks argues that maritime digitalisation has historically been slowed by vendor lock-in, where infrastructure and applications were inseparable.

“We deliberately avoid that,” he says. “We connect sensors and systems, but the customer decides what to do with the data and who to share it with.”

Expanding the Sensor Ecosystem

One of ScanReach’s most recent expansions involves the integration of low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensors into its network. Originally introduced through crew wearables, BLE capability now allows the system to ingest data from a wide range of commercially available IoT sensors.

These can monitor temperature, humidity, vibration, door and hatch status, and gas levels, among other parameters. In practice, this enables applications such as continuous monitoring of refrigerated stores, cargo environments, or machinery spaces—often at a fraction of the cost of traditional maritime-specific systems.

While such sensors do not replace certified safety equipment where regulations require it, they provide operators with continuous situational awareness and early indicators of developing issues.

Looking ahead, Brooks sees exposure management—monitoring factors such as heat, noise, and environmental stress—as a natural extension of personnel location data.

“If you already know where people are, adding hazard awareness is the logical next step,” he says.

Retrofitting, Newbuilds, and Simplicity

A key advantage of ScanReach’s approach is ease of installation. Designed for retrofitting, systems can be deployed quickly without extensive engineering work. Configuration relies on QR codes, guided videos, and plug-and-play hardware rather than lengthy manuals and specialist technicians.

This simplicity, Brooks argues, reflects a broader generational shift in how maritime technology is adopted and maintained.

At the same time, the company sees significant potential in newbuilds. While wireless systems will not replace cabling entirely, reducing the volume of signal cabling can lower build costs, increase flexibility, and simplify future upgrades.

ScanReach is already working with shipyards and OEMs, positioning its platform as a complementary layer rather than a competing system.

Trust, Privacy, and the Human Factor

As with any personnel tracking technology, concerns around privacy inevitably arise. Brooks draws a parallel with voyage data recorders, which initially faced strong resistance but are now universally accepted as safety tools.

ScanReach’s systems are GDPR-compliant by design. Tracking is limited to work areas, not cabins, and data ownership remains with the vessel operator. Wearables include distress buttons, allowing crew members to call for assistance—functionality Brooks says has already contributed to life-saving interventions. That clarity, Brooks notes, has been critical to crew acceptance and rapid operational rollout.

“The device is no different from a hard hat or safety boots,” he says. “It’s there to protect people, not to monitor them.”

A Broader Vision for the Next Five

Years Looking ahead, ScanReach aims to extend its platform beyond individual vessels toward asset-wide visibility. In offshore wind and offshore energy, that means connecting vessels, turbines, and shore-based operations into a unified safety and data environment.

The company is already working toward synchronised vessel-to-cloud architectures that provide real-time visibility of people and assets across entire wind farms or oil fields.

For Brooks, this represents the natural evolution of maritime digitalisation: moving from isolated systems to integrated, open infrastructure that supports safety, efficiency, and future innovation.

“Raw data on its own is just noise,” he concludes. “Value comes from context—and that’s what we’re building.”