HD Hyundai Mipo, a shipbuilding subsidiary of HD Hyundai Group, Korea’s largest shipbuilding conglomerate, will cooperate with Hancom Group to develop a wireless battery fire monitoring system for marine use.
On April 15, HD Hyundai Mipo and Hancom Ubimicro, an affiliate of the Hancom Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Ulsan, South Korea, to jointly develop a fire monitoring system of wireless batteries onboard.
Lee Chang-joon, CEO of HD Hyundai Oopo, and Kim Min-jun, CEO of Hancom Ubimicro, attended the signing ceremony and agreed to collaborate on the commercialization of technology to remotely detect signs of battery fires on ships.
Under the MoU, HD Hyundai Mipo plans to develop safety and design technologies to prevent battery fires on ships under construction, and Hancom Ubimicro plans to develop devices to measure five composite gases (hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen sulfide), a fire and temperature monitoring system as well as a remote and integrated control system for the ship’s battery room.
The safety monitoring technology developed will use Long Range Radio (LoRa) to simplify the installation process while also featuring mobile and onshore control, making it more versatile than existing wired methods.
The technology will also use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to eliminate the possibility of false alarms from fire detection sensors by analyzing measured temperature and humidity as well as thermal camera images to determine if a fire is occurring.
The partners will implement the systems by the end of October 2024, followed by joint testing on a 24,000-ton ro-ro vessel to prove their safety and reliability. HD Hyundai Mipo has accumulated various battery room design technologies to prevent fire accidents, including temperature and humidity detection and control, fire monitoring and alarm, and operation of fire extinguishing equipment, through the construction and delivery of a series of electric passenger ships such as the MANXMAN.
If wireless monitoring technology is commercialized, even battery-powered ships in the under-construction stage will be able to respond quickly to fires through real-time monitoring, thus minimizing accidental damage.