Always a car guy

Test Engineer of the Year Henry Huang’s passion for testing has helped make Ford’s SYNC successful.

Dan Romanchik, Contributing Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 5/1/2011 12:05:00 AM

In our December 2010/January 2011 issue, we profiled six outstanding test engineers, and we asked our readers to vote for the Test Engineer of the Year. The winner is Henry Huang, a technical specialist at Ford. As part of his award, Huang will designate an educational institution to receive a $10,000 grant, courtesy of National Instruments, the award sponsor. Photo by Jeffery White. See also: T&MW Awards Program 2011 Test Engineer of the Year Finalists May 2011 Issue

Dearborn, MI—Henry Huang, Test & Measurement World’s 2011 Test Engineer of the Year, is a technical specialist and supervisor for the SYNC platform QA group at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, MI. His job title, however, doesn’t do him justice.

“He’s a saint.”

“You couldn’t have picked a better guy.”

“Dedicated.”

These were the words his manager and co-workers used to describe Huang as I toured the Ford labs and talked to them. They not only respected his technical abilities, but also had a real affection for him as a person. After spending a day with Huang and his crew, I came to agree with them: T&MW’s readers couldn’t have picked a better engineer for this award.

Huang, a native of China, has always been a car guy. “Ever since I was a kid,” he said, “cars and trucks have been fascinating to me.” Huang earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Hefei University of Technology in China, and then came to the US to continue his studies.

After receiving his master’s degree from the University of Detroit, Huang went to work for Ford, and he’s been a Ford employee for 20 years. He hasn’t always been a test engineer, though. He started out in research and development, working on ECMs (electronic-control modules).

Huang eventually worked on a project called the 42V/14V Dual Voltage Vehicle Electrical and Electronic System Architecture. The goal of this project was to investigate the feasibility of transitioning automotive electronics from a 12-V supply to a 42-V supply that could more easily handle the higher power requirements of today’s vehicles.
Proponents of the 42-V system claimed it would reduce the current levels and lower the cost of the electrical system by allowing companies to downsize wiring and electrical components. This would also reduce the mass and volume required by the electrical system and, ultimately, improve fuel efficiency.

It was while working on this project that Huang realized the importance of testing, specifically integration testing. In addition to Ford Motor Co., the project involved MIT, Mercedes-Benz, Motorola, Yazaki, and other automotive suppliers. To ensure that electronic modules worked under the new architecture, the companies needed to perform integration tests, so they set up a lab at Ford where they could evaluate their new 42-V components and modules. The lab was equipped to allow the partners to perform their bench tests remotely. The companies would send their modules to the Ford lab, where technicians would configure and run the tests. The data was gathered automatically and then transmitted to the companies for their analysis.

Ultimately, Huang noted, the 42-V systems didn’t pan out, because other technologies, such as hybrid-vehicle technology, proved to be more effective in improving fuel economy and reducing emissions. Even so, Huang’s efforts were duly recognized. With other Ford engineers, he published two papers on 42-V technology, and one of them, “Automotive Electrical System in the New Millennium,” was named the Outstanding Paper for the 1999 SAE International Truck & Bus Meeting & Exposition.

Transition to test engineer

Huang’s work on ECMs eventually led him into test engineering. “Even in development,” he said, “testing is always part of what we do.” He added, “Automotive electronic-control modules have hundreds of I/O pins as well as data-communication ports, so testing them can be a real challenge.”

Someone in management must have noticed Huang’s affinity for test, because he was asked to set up Ford’s first HIL (hardware-in-the-loop) test lab. The lab’s first project was to test the Body Control Module that controlled components such as door locks, windows, and headlights. Huang formed and led a group of engineers who developed a system to automatically test both the hardware and software of this complex module.

Their efforts paid off. According to Huang, the HIL tests dramatically reduced testing time and significantly increased test coverage. As a result, his group won the 2005 Technical Excellence Award for the Electrical Electronic System Engineering Division at Ford.

The project also sold Ford on the benefits of HIL testing. The HIL test lab has been expanded from that single test station to more than 10 stations, and it runs tests on nearly all of the ECMs now found in Ford vehicles.
SYNC challenges test engineers

Currently, Huang is working on the second generation of the Ford SYNC, which is the backbone of the company’s MyFord Touch product that lets a driver use voice controls, touch screens, and buttons on the steering wheel to activate phones, entertainment systems, climate controls, and navigation devices (see “SYNC’s second generation”). Huang is responsible for all of the development testing of SYNC, and he is indirectly responsible for the production testing as well.

As you can imagine, testing the SYNC module is a complicated task. First, there are the technical challenges. The SYNC module is a complex system that includes hardware and software from a number of companies. It also communicates with and controls several other ECMs over three different CAN (controller area network) buses.

The testing also introduces logistical nightmares. Huang not only supervises engineers who report directly to him, but he must also coordinate efforts with other groups, some of whom are testing parts of the SYNC system at remote locations. For example, a plant in Guadalajara, Mexico, manufactures and tests SYNC hardware, and groups in Pune, India, and Bellevue, WA, perform software testing.

Fortunately, Huang seems to be the perfect man for the job. In addition to his technical chops (he holds master’s degrees in both electrical engineering and computer science), Huang also has the personality to pull it all off. His manager, Sukhwinder Wadhwa, told me, “He’s a saint. I’ve never seen him blow up.” And as we toured the facility and I met the engineers who work with Huang, they all seemed to have a genuine affection for him.

I can understand why, too. As we talked about all the projects Huang has worked on over the years, he was always quick to credit the engineers who worked with him.

One of the technical contributions Huang has made to the SYNC project is something his co-workers call the “Henry Test.” Early in the development of the technology, the engineers found that the SYNC module and its software would sometimes fail to start up properly. To ensure that modules installed in a production vehicle did not fail, Huang devised a development test that cycles power to the SYNC up to 50 times at selected and random intervals. A system passes the test if it boots up and functions properly every time. If a design passes the “Henry Test,” the engineers know it’s ready for the real world.

Bringing it back in-house

In the automotive industry, there is a trend toward pushing design and test costs to Tier 1 suppliers. Huang’s commitment to test-process improvement helped reverse this process—at least as far as the SYNC is concerned.

Huang made an important contribution to the scheme for what Ford calls “provisioning” the SYNC module, or programming it with the software that it needs for a particular vehicle. Provisioning allows the company to manufacture a single version of the hardware module rather than numerous model-specific versions. The same hardware gets installed in economy models, such as the Ford Edge, as in top-of-the-line cars, such as the Lincoln MKX (where the product is called MyLincoln Touch). It’s the software that differentiates one model from the next.

Huang figured out a way to install the software using the SYNC’s WiFi link as the vehicle moves down the assembly line. When the vehicle reaches the end-of-line test station, a tester runs a functional test to ensure that the software was installed properly.

As he was explaining this, Huang related a story about how his team debugged the process. As Ford was setting up the assembly line at its factory in Oakville, ON, Canada, Huang actually rode down the line with the car, monitoring the process on a laptop PC. He got some funny looks from the assembly-line workers, but in the end, the company had a solid process that ensured that each SYNC was programmed correctly.

The improvements that Huang and his group made in testing and provisioning convinced Ford to move the design and development in-house. And because the improvements allow the company to manufacture only one version of the hardware, they have also helped Ford save millions of dollars.

Moving forward

After our whirlwind tour of the labs, I had a chance to sit down with Huang as he reflected on his career and talked about where things are going in test engineering. Regarding his career, he said, “I’ve been very lucky. I’ve worked for good bosses and have been able to work on good projects.” While that may be true, Huang, like all good engineers, has also made his own luck by working hard and taking steps such as writing technical papers and filing for patents to advance his career. For example, Huang and his colleague Michael Westra recently received US Patent 0190439 for a message-transmission protocol they devised for securely transporting information, such as vehicle-maintenance data, between a vehicle-based system and a service-delivery network.

As far as the future of test engineering, Huang pointed to the complexity of today’s electronics as the biggest challenge test engineers face. The SYNC is a good example. The hardware includes multiple processors, multiple data-communications buses, and human-machine interfaces. The software may be even more complex, with multiple suppliers providing the operating system and application software. Huang expects this kind of complexity to increase as customers ask for more features and Ford seeks to satisfy them.

When I asked how we’re going to deal with increased complexity, Huang replied that testing has to start earlier in the design process. I got a chuckle out of this. “Haven’t we been saying this for decades?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered, “but now we really have no choice.” He then pointed out that Ford, at least, is really starting to take this seriously. He noted that there are nearly as many test and quality engineers working on the SYNC project as there are design engineers.

Finally, I asked what makes a good test engineer. He replied, “a passion for testing.” Huang certainly has that passion, and that’s why he’s the 2011 Test Engineer of the Year. T&MW

SYNC's second generation In 2007, Ford introduced SYNC, the company’s first attempt to mesh the world of consumer electronics with the automotive dashboard. MyFord Touch, powered by the SYNC technology, is the second generation of this product. In developing MyFord Touch, Ford engineers redesigned the in-car interface, mirroring how consumers operate other devices by using touch-sensitive buttons, touch screens, and voice recognition. The system displays information using two 4.2-in. full-color LCD screens flanking an analog speedometer and an 8-in. touch-screen LCD at the top of the center stack. The driver uses a five-way switch on each side of the steering wheel crossbar, similar to the ones found on mobile phones and MP3 players, to control the information displayed on the instrument-panel screens. Some of the notable features in the system include: •    a wide range of audio inputs including USB ports, an SD card slot, RCA audio- and video-input jacks, and support for MP3 players and smartphones; •    WiFi and Bluetooth ports for wireless interfaces; •    direct speech commands for climate-control functions and radio functions; •    storable user profiles that customize the radio and climate-control settings; and •    navigation controls, including a TDI (Traffic, Directions and Information) application that alerts drivers to traffic backups and adjusts routes accordingly. Inside, the SYNC sports two processors. The first, a Freescale i.MX5x 64-bit microprocessor, hosts the operating system, Microsoft Auto. The second, a Freescale S12XE microcontroller, interfaces with the three CAN buses in the vehicle. Via the CAN buses, SYNC communicates with other electronic-control modules, allowing it to accept inputs from buttons mounted on the steering column and to display messages on the instrument panel’s LCD screen. The MyFord Touch technology launched on the 2011 Ford Edge, while its sister product, MyLincoln Touch, is available on the 2011 Lincoln MKX. The technologies will be extended to the entire Ford and Lincoln lines beginning with the 2012 model year.—Dan Romanchik