The following (non-exhaustive) list provides an overview of thesis topics currently available at our chair. Please contact the respective advisor(s) in case you are interested!

Note: If you are enrolled in a study programme that is not one of the study fields directly offered by the Department of Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University (Bachelor, Master), want Klaus Wehrle to be your second examiner, or are interested in writing a topic with another institution (e.g., non-CS chairs, Fraunhofer institutes or industry), see this page.

Thesis Tutorial

• Since usually the process of finding and working on a thesis topic raises heaps of questions, we offer a tutorial to (hopefully) answer all your questions and give you hints on how to successfully navigate this final leap towards your successful degree. Just stop by if you are interested and discuss with us - no registration needed!
• Next tutorial: Thursday, December 12, 2024, 1:00 pm at the Ballsaal (9222) - two floors above us

Don’t be discouraged by an empty or very short thesis list; many topics only develop during discussions between the prospective advisors and you, and contacting us is always worth a try. Thus, if you are interested in writing your thesis with us and do not find an open topic above, you can take a look at our research vision, past and ongoing theses, and publications to get an impression of our research interests, which currently fall into the following categories:

• Cyber-Physical Systems
• Network Architectures
• Security and Privacy
• Systems Analysis

Afterwards, directly contact the team members whose research interests match yours and ask if they have a topic for you.

Since our resources are limited, we unfortunately cannot give a guarantee that we have a matching topic for you. To increase your chances by sticking out of the many students contacting us, there are some items that are beneficial (but not mandatory) to include in thesis-related mails, especially if you have not been in contact with us through our seminars, labs, or previous thesis/HiWi work:

• A short (200 to 300 words) abstract in PDF format, describing what generally interests you in terms of research directions (see above) and/or methods (e.g., AI, simulations, measurements, protocol design, theoretical work, …). The more we know about your interests, the better.
• Your current transcript of records (Notenspiegel), or at least a list of electoral courses that you have taken and those you may want to take in the Master programme
• Any constraints that you may have for your thesis, such as:
  • Deadlines, including eventual latest hand-in dates for the thesis. Examples for this include, e.g., that you want to stay within the standard period of study (Regelstudienzeit). Please note that we usually allocate two to four weeks for you to familiarize with your topic before registration (see Thesis Process), which you would have to add to the normal thesis time.
  • Planned longer periods of absence (>1 week) during your prospective thesis time or in the month thereafter (in which you will usually give your Final Talk, see Thesis Process).

If you are unsure know whom to contact, you can also write us a mail to thesis@comsys.rwth-aachen.de. We will then assess which advisors or topics may be good fits and will respond with suggestions on how to proceed. For this to work, make sure to include at least the abstract described above. Please note that mails without the abstract may not be answered by us.