The Controls Engineering department at LITC consists of experts, who work conjointly with the global Controls Engineering team towards delivering innovative control systems, which are used in automated controlling of processes or products that goes with the air conditioning products. The team handles the manufacturing of hardware and development of software that are used for these control products.
Our Controls team also build mobile applications, user facing products and most importantly IOT- enabled systems to drive higher efficiency and better management of processes and assets.
Hardware Engineering offers proficiency in Schematics Design, BOM Creation, Simulation and Gerber layout wiring harness creation. Software Engineering specializes in the design and development of embedded firmware for various MCUs as well as Windows applications. There is also an established Configuration Management process replete with Automated Continuous Integration and Change Request Handling mechanisms. The Quality & Test Engineering offers fully automated end-to-end testing, automated unit testing and Field Trial Data analysis among other capabilities.
This function is responsible for end-to-end software project execution right from the system study, requirement analysis, design, implementation and unit testing, following a customized development process (adapted from agile and waterfall). Controls software uses contemporary technologies such as WIFI, Awahi/Bonjour, SignalR, BTLE, JSON schema for database information, and platforms running embedded Linux, iOS, Android OS.
The end-to-end solution offered by software team has multiple components viz., the embedded firmware for controls, with interfaces to cloud server systems and, mobile applications for iOS and Android hand-held devices. The software development is facilitated by tight workflow mechanism comprising of tools such as AccuRev, CaliberRM, StarTeam, with dynamic and static analysis tools such as Coverity and code collaborator.
(Schematic & PCB Design, Wiring Harness, Certification, Reliability Testing)
This function is responsible for the embedded hardware design involving analog, high-speed digital and RF technologies & PCB layout design, signal/power/stress analyses, wiring harness design, reliability testing, material cost reduction, sustaining, manufacturing & value engineering, prototyping and certification.
(Unit Testing, System Testing, Integration Testing, Field Trial Analysis, Test Automation, Process Automation, Scripting)
The objective of this function is to work towards ensuring quality of the firmware developed by means of white-box, software to software integration, design based, bare board level tests. IT follows closely with the firmware development cycle to help capture the defects early in the development lifecycle. Continuous integration of these functions helps quicker product development.
The process is facilitated using Google Test framework for C++, and Python scripting for Field trial system validation. The team works closely with the development team to validate the common codes across iOS and Android mobile applications. The system test team is involved in the black-box testing of the controls products; this includes device level, hardware to software integration and end to end test scenarios, covering the end points of mobile applications on iOS & Android along with other web applications.
Lennox innovation lab (Reliability & Residential equipment test) was established in the year 2019 to meet the growing demand for test requirements at Lennox India. This state-of-the-art lab houses various testing equipment in a 2700 Sq. ft fully air-conditioned facility. The lab is divided into two major testing areas namely Reliability and Residential equipment testing.
The reliability test section is used to test electronic control boards on how they operate in extreme conditions of temperature, humidity, power line fluctuations, disturbance in the power line, electrostatic discharge, insulation resistance, leakage current, etc. The lab consists of equipment like:
- ESD Simulator
- EFT (Burst) & Surge and Ring Test
- Dielectric Withstand Tester
- Thermal Imaging Camera
- Data Acquisition / Switch Unit (Data Logger)
- Microscope
- Chattering Relay testerInductive Kickback tester
- Spark Ignition tester
- Climatic Chamber
- Thermal Shock Chamber
The residential equipment test section is used to test newly designed electronic control boards in actual residential air-conditioner products to subject them into real-time operation. This section houses various models of Lennox Residential air conditioner models and subsystems. The subsystems are Outdoor units, Air Handler Units, Furnace units, humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. Using the unit’s designers perform functional testing of various newly designed electronic Controls boards like Thermostats, Unit Control boards, Air Handler control boards, etc
Overall having such an advanced test facility helps LII to bring technologically advanced and quality air-conditioning product to its customers.