The KNX & Modbus Multibrand Living Lab

Project overview

CIFP Politècnic de Llevant is a public vocational institute in Mallorca, Spain, with a 15-year-old KNX building automation system that has been continuously updated and expanded by students and professors.

As part of the Politècnic's HVAC automation upgrade, its Midea heat pump and AC units needed to be integrated into the Evolution platform, a multiprotocol BMS that supports KNX, BACnet, Modbus, DALI, and other protocols. Its purpose is to monitor, visualize, and control the building's mechanical and electrical equipment. This heat pump integration need became a project developed and implemented as part of the advanced vocational training curriculum. It combined building automation protocols with systems and equipment including DALI lighting control, meteorological automation, ESP32 microcontrollers, Siemens LOGO! PLCs, and KNX devices from multiple manufacturers.

Nominated in the Education category of the KNX Awards 2026, the project pursued two objectives:

• Achieve centralized HVAC control and monitoring, automated scheduling, and energy optimization across the campus.
• Provide students practical experience integrating HVAC systems and working with several communication protocols on a complex installation, helping them prepare for KNX Partner and KNX Advanced certifications.

Challenges for the students

• Connecting the heat pump’s Modbus RTU serial bus (EIA-485) to the Ethernet network where BMS runs Modbus TCP.
• Running complex control logic in BMS Evolution, such as fan coil activation thresholds > 0.5 and OR+DELAY blocks, and sending the results over IP to the heat pump’s serial registers.
• Creating a transparent protocol bridge that keeps the exact register addresses.

The Politècnic de Llevant building is the heart of the center's teaching: a real-world platform where every year, students can get certified as KNX Partners and KNX Advanced Partners with Futurasmus in our own classrooms.

Professor Miquel Ferragut Barceló - Department of Electricity and Electronics / Vocational Trainers

Technical solution using Intesis

To connect the air-to-water heat pump to the BMS, students used the Intesis INMBSRTR0320000 Modbus router. This device enables communication between the heat pump’s Modbus RTU interface and the building’s Modbus TCP network. Because the Intesis device operates as a transparent Modbus router, all Midea registers remain accessible at their native addresses directly from the BMS Evolution XML templates without modifying register addresses. The BMS generates control commands over IP/Ethernet (Modbus TCP), which the gateway receives and transparently forwards to the serial EIA-485 bus. Commands reach the heat pump in real time, enabling zone control, remote enable, and status monitoring.

Benefits:

• For the educational center: Centralized HVAC control through the BMS, optimizing energy consumption and thermal comfort across classrooms.
• For instructors and students: No complicated register mapping tables required. Direct correlation between BMS XML templates and physical heat pump registers.
• For the environment: Scheduled operation and automatic control logic reduced standby losses and unnecessary heat pump runtime, contributing to efficient energy use.

Why Intesis was chosen

The Intesis Modbus router was selected for its transparent routing architecture, robust EIA-485 serial communication, and proven reliability in industrial and commercial applications such as HVAC integration. Its transparent router functionality eliminated the administrative overhead of mapping register addresses, allowing BMS Evolution to communicate directly with Midea registers over Modbus TCP.

About Politècnic de Llevant

Located in Mallorca (Spain), the Politècnic de Llevant is a vocational and technical education center that prepares students for professional life through a combination of academic learning and practical training. Through its hands-on approach and modern facilities, this institution contributes to the development of a highly skilled workforce and supports the region's educational growth.

About Intesis

Intesis, the Building Automation division of HMS Networks, is a globally recognized provider of HVAC integration gateways and protocol converter gateways. With more than two decades of experience, Intesis enables interoperability between devices and systems, helping integrators, installers, and building owners connect devices across major industry protocols, including KNX, BACnet, Modbus, OCPP, DALI, MQTT, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and proprietary HVAC protocols.