master thesis eth infk

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Dept. of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering

Projects and master's thesis.

Master's students are required to complete one (2018 regulations) or two (2008 regulations) semester projects and one Master's thesis. The projects and the thesis are supervised by a professor of the Department (including adjunct professors ) or by a Download professor associated (PDF, 97 KB) vertical_align_bottom with the Department. Most projects are carried out under the guidance of, and in close contact with, a PhD student of the supervising professor. If two semester projects are carried out, to broaden your horizon, they should be carried out with two different professors.

Semester projects

A semester project should take about half of a student‘s time during one semester, i.e., about 300 to 400 hours has a duration of 14 weeks . It is possible to do a semester project in 7 weeks full-time outside a semester, but it is not recommended. The project includes an oral presentation and a written report, and it is graded. Before starting, the project must be registered in mystudies ("Projects/papers/theses").

Master's thesis

The Master's degree programme concludes with a Master's thesis that lasts six months. The project includes an oral presentation and a written report (the Master's thesis), and it is graded. Before starting the project, the Master's thesis must be registered in mystudies ("Projects/papers/theses"). You will be admitted to the Master's thesis only if both semester projects (2008 regulations) are or one semester project (2018 regulations) is successfully completed.

Once the Master's thesis is successfully finished and all credits are obtained, students may request their diploma .

Information: Publication of Master Thesis in the Research Collection

Students have the possibility of publishing their master theses in the Research Collection . To publish master theses in the Research Collection, a letter of recommendation from the respective supervisor is needed. You can find further information on the webpage .

Semester project, Bachelor's and Master's theses offers at D-ITET:

If projects are taken, sometimes related projects may be available. Often, labs are willing to customize a project to match the students' interests. Many labs welcome students' own ideas for projects.

Below an overview of labs offering semester project and Master's thesis by specialisation:

• chevron_right Communication Technology Laboratory
• chevron_right Signal and Information Processing Laboratory
• chevron_right Chair for Mathematical Information Science
• chevron_right Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory
• chevron_right Computer Vision Laboratory
• chevron_right Chair for Computer Science
• chevron_right Computer Security Group
• chevron_right Computer Architecture (SAFARI Research Group)
• chevron_right Institute for Electronics
• chevron_right Institute of Electromagnetic Fields
• chevron_right Integrated Systems Laboratory
• chevron_right Millimetre-wave Electronics Laboratory
• external page call_made Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics at EMPA
• chevron_right Photonics Laboratory

Booklet Download Semester/Master's theses "Energy and Power Electronics" (PDF, 78.2 MB) vertical_align_bottom

• chevron_right Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory
• chevron_right Laboratory for High-power Electronics Systems
• chevron_right Power Electronic Systems Laboratory
• chevron_right High Voltage Laboratory
• chevron_right Power Systems Laboratory
• external page call_made Institute of Neuroinformatics
• chevron_right Institute for Biomedical Engineering

For further ITET projects see external page SiROP website call_made .

Department of Computer Science | Institute of Theoretical Computer Science

CADMO - Center for Algorithms, Discrete Mathematics and Optimization

• Honors and Awards
• Best Paper Awards
• Scholarships
• Publications
• Current Lectures and Seminars
• Guidelines for Theses
• Typesetting and Style
• Thesis Template
• Thesis Archive
• BSc in Computer Science
• BSc in Mathematics
• MSc in Computer Science
• MSc in Mathematics
• PhD program
• Syllabi of our Courses
• Lecture Guidelines
• Graduate School

Computer Science students who want to write their Master thesis with us: please consult also the general regulations for master theses of the Department of Computer Science (in German only).

In any case, please make sure you have read and understood the ETH regulations on plagiarism .

The CADMO groups offer a wide range of possible topics for a Bachelor, Diploma, or Master Thesis. There is a list of topics on the web, but these are not exclusive. If you have other ideas or interests, you are welcome to contact a advisor of your choice and talk about possibilities for a tailor-made topic. This makes sense, for example, if you have attended an advanced course, and there was a topic that you really liked and want to study in more detail.

Subject to availability (usually, this is no problem), we can offer you an office space in the CAB building (equipped with desk and computer) to work on your thesis. You don't have to accept this offer, but if you do, this has the advantage that you are close to your advisor, other members of CADMO, and other students that are writing their thesis. Obviously, discussing things, asking questions, and getting answers to them quickly is much easier then.

You can expect a weekly meeting with your advisor, of one up to two hours, depending on the state of your work. Usually, short meetings in between are always possible, and if you work in CAB, they can usually be arranged spontaneously.

In general, we offer a lively and research-oriented environment. The two major platforms for communicating the research performed by members or guests of our workgroups are the Mittagsseminar and the SOS , which usually take place once or twice a week, all year round. You are welcome to join: to listen, or even to give a talk about the work of your thesis (this is mandatory for obtaining a grade of 5.75 or 6 for a Master thesis).

Expectations

The role of your advisor is to guide you through your thesis: give possible directions, suggest ways out of dead ends etc. But the actual work has to be done by you. This should be self- evident, but let us make the point clear explicitly: we expect you to work independently in the sense that you tackle upcoming questions and problems yourself, before contacting your advisor about them. This is not because we're too lazy, but because the process of doing independent work is an indispensible part of any thesis. Also, you are expected to do independent literature search and reading. If all the papers you read in the course of the thesis work and all the references in your thesis were pointed out by your advisor, this is a bad sign. (On-line search is a great tool, but note: There is also a library which offers many older articles and in particular books that are not available on- line.)

You may get stuck, of course, after exhausting your possibilities, and then you are welcome to solicit help.

You are not required to find new theoretical results during your thesis, although this is always a goal that one should strive for. It is even possible to obtain the best grade without having new results, but in that case, other aspects of the thesis must be excellent (for example, the style of presentation, or software that you produced during the thesis).

There are research-oriented topics with the clear goal of finding new results, and there are topics that are more about implementing or summarizing known methods in a novel way. By choosing the topic, you can determine the research level of your thesis yourself.

Although it may seem picky to talk about page numbers (after all, some great research in history only took very few pages to write down), we still have to do it. If you produce a great new result, we're in fact satisfied with whatever number of pages it takes you to write it down properly. But in other cases, we also want to convince ourselves that you are a good craftsperson. And this means to carefully and understandably write down the problem covered by the thesis, the history, and your contribution. In our experience, this requires a certain minimum number of pages; here the following table can serve as a guideline.

Let us also emphasize that writing a lot per se is not a virtue either. So unless you have good reasons, to be discussed with your advisor, do not exceed the lower page limit by more than 50%, i.e., be selective in what you include in your thesis. After all, not everything that can be written down is worth being read. To quote Blaise Pascal: "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte" ("I have made this letter so long only because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter", also attributed to Mark Twain and others).

Please also note: it is not your advisor's job to repeatedly proofread your thesis. As a rule of thumb, you should expect that he or she will read each chapter of your thesis only twice: once to give feedback, and once after you submitted the final version. You should therefore make sure that the parts you ask your advisor to read are not rough first drafts, but in as good a shape as you can manage on your own. Also, it is usually a good idea to produce solid write-ups of your findings as you go along; dont postpone "writing things down" to the end of your thesis. In this way you can also incorporate feedback on how to improve your write-up that you got from your advisor for one chapter already in preparing the next chapter.

Formalities

There are not many: you should supply the final result of your work (the thesis) in electronic form (PDF). Every thesis or semester paper must include with it a completed and signed declaration of originality . This declaration is a component of the written work and must be included in every copy of it. In order to obtain a grade of 5.75 or 6 for a Master thesis, you have to present your work in the Mittagsseminar or the SOS ; your advisor will arrange this. Note: if you present your thesis in the Mittagsseminar, your talk should last 30 minutes (like almost everybody else's), not 45 minutes (which is the time for regular student talks).

ETH E-Collection is a publication platform provided by ETH-Bibliothek outside traditional publishing. Master theses can be published there if they are considered worthy of publication. To fulfill this condition, a grade of 6.0 is usually necessary but not sufficient.

The grade of your thesis is based on the written document you hand in at the end and the performance you demonstrate throughout the thesis work. The grading scheme for all accepted theses is as follows:

• 6.0 : work and results are truly excellent (in case of Master theses the rule of thumb is that the quality of the thesis should be equivalent to work publishable at international workshops/conferences)
• 5.5 : thesis quality significantly exceeds expectations
• 5.0 : thesis meets expectations
• 4.5 : thesis partially meets expectations, minor deficits
• 4.0 : thesis meets minimal quality requirements; it has major deficits and it is significantly below expectations

Quarter grades (5.25 etc.) are also possible; the above rules extend in the natural way.

Helpful documents

• We recommend that you write your thesis with LaTeX. There is an introduction to latex and typesetting on a separate page. We also have a thesis template that you can/should use.
• We have compiled a few simple but important rules for writing scientific texts in English. They are mandatory reading if you want to write a thesis with us.
• There is also a helpful guide on scientific writing by Don Knuth (the author of TeX), Tracy Larrabee and Paul Roberts. It is quite extensive and not everything in it is relevant to our purposes, but you should read at least the first 13 pages (§1 - §5). The full text can be downloaded in plainTeX-Format from Knuth's homepage ; here s a precompiled version for your convenience.
• Also, there is a handy guide on writing mathematical papers in English by Jerzy Trzeciak, providing countless examples and sample phrases you can use in your work. It is available from the EMS for the modest amount of 8 Euro. Your advisor also might have a copy that he/she is willing to lend you.

Info about Bachelor and Master theses

if anything in this article is outdated or a link does not work, please contact Hopo: hopo ät vis.ethz.ch

Short information

• Regulations: https://inf.ethz.ch/de/studium/dokumente.html
• List of all research groups: https://inf.ethz.ch/studies/semester-and-master-theses.html
• Mailing list: [email protected], subscribe via: https://lists.vis.ethz.ch/sympa/info/thesis (login required)

The Bachelor and Master thesis is part of the Computer Science Bachelor and Master program at ETH. The goal of both theses is to learn independent structured and scientific work methods.

The most important information about the Bachelor's and Master's thesis can be found in the study regulations and the information sheets of the respective study program. These documents are listed on the following page of the D-INFK: https://inf.ethz.ch/de/studium/dokumente.html In the following we summarize the most important points.

Both theses take 6 months to complete. The bachelor thesis is worth 10 KP and the master thesis 30 KP. The bachelor thesis can be written over 6 months in a part-time workload or as a full-time workload in a shorter time frame. The master's thesis is written over 6 months in a 100% workload.

Under certain conditions, the Bachelor thesis can also be written in a group (see Bachelor regulations Art 36.6). However, this is not common.

In order to be admitted for the Master thesis, sufficient credit points must have been acquired from some categories: see Master regulations 2020 Art 35.2 and the regulations of 2009 Art 32.2. In order to be admitted for the Bachelor thesis, 5 basic subjects must have been passed, see information sheet Bachelor thesis. If these conditions are fulfilled, you can start the thesis at any time. But note that the submission date is before the end of your study deadline and the start date must also be convenient for your supervisors.

The Bachelor thesis is supervised by one or more professors. From our experience (HoPo-Team) this supervision can vary a lot:

• The supervision can be done directly by the professor or by PhD students or PostDocs of the respective group.
• Supervision can be very time intensive (meetings at least once a week) or only as needed (if questions arise, they are clarified).

Both theses are completed with a written report and a presentation. The form of this presentation (audience, duration) may vary from group to group. The standard of the written work also varies.

The work can also be done externally, i.e. in industry or at another university. However, the work must still be supervised by an ETH professor. This professor also assigns the grade at the end and, depending on the project, also takes over part of the supervision. For the Data Science and Cyber Security Master there are some additional regulations regarding external master theses: See section 3 of the Data Science Master thesis leaflet, section 4 of the Cyber Security leaflet or Data Science study regulations art. 28.2. or Cyber Security study regulations art. 33.4.

For more and detailed information, check out the documents linked above.

How to find a topic:

Take your time to find a topic and a group. You should expect at least one month from your first mail to the start of your work. This process may also take longer. So if you want to start on a fixed date, you should start looking early enough. For some groups, half a year before the start is too early. This varies from group to group.

Subscribe to the mailing list: Once you are looking, you should subscribe to the mailing list to get possible proposals from there ( https://lists.vis.ethz.ch/sympa/info/thesis ). When you have found a thesis, you can unsubscribe.

Find a subject: First of all, you should think about what field you are interested in. Especially for the bachelor thesis, you probably don't have very concrete ideas yet. It can help to think about which lectures you were interested in and which you enjoyed. And then look at the field of the professorship.

Find a group: The department lists all professorships and their research groups at the following link https://inf.ethz.ch/studies/semester-and-master-theses.html . The links sometimes point to the general website of the research group, then you can get an idea of their work, or to a page for writing papers in the respective group. Such pages often contain possible topics or already prepared proposals, requirements to you and email addresses of the contact persons. It is worthwhile to study such pages. It should be noted, however, that the lists of proposals are usually not complete and often not up to date. However, the proposals will give you a good idea of what you can do as work in this group. The new topics will be similar. Even if no concrete proposals are announced, it is worth asking. There is also a new mailing list where topics for papers are advertised. Both from research groups of the department and from externals: https://lists.vis.ethz.ch/sympa/info/thesis

Write to the groups: The above sites often tell you who to contact to find a paper. If you are unsure, write to the professor personally. You can also write to several groups, and then choose the topic that interests you the most. This process can take some time. Professors are very busy and often take 2 days or more to respond. If you don't get an answer within a week, you can ask nicely. Unfortunately, it also happens that emails are ignored completely, then you should look for another group. Even if it sometimes takes a while with the professors; try to write back within 24 hours.

Have a meeting: It's best to set up a meeting where you can talk about possible projects and get to know the potential supervisors. Have them explain the topic and ask questions. Also find out a bit about how the group will supervise you (and if that's right for you) and when you can start working. Additionally, for the bachelor's thesis, clarify whether you will be working on it part-time for 6 months (the normal case) or full-time for a shorter period of time.

Decide: When deciding on a topic, it is certainly important that it interests or even excites you. You have to work intensively on it for 6 months. But it is just as important that the supervision is right for you. Do you prefer intensive collaboration or are infrequent inputs enough for you? Can you imagine working together with the supervisor? Are the expectations realistic? Also, exchange ideas with friends or stop by the VIS office, someone may already know the group you want to learn about.

Finish in time: If you do the Bachelor thesis and an ETH Computer Science Master: The Bachelor thesis grade must be there at the beginning of the Computer Science Master, so that you can still enroll (Friday second week of the first Master semester at the latest). In case of doubt please ask Denise Spicher (or Hopo). Note that your supervisors need time to give you the grade (up to 4 weeks, in rare cases more).

Other useful links:

• Latex template: The CADMO provides the following template: https://www.cadmo.ethz.ch/education/thesis/template.html
• Links from CADMO: On the page of CADMO about master and bachelor theses is a list of useful links: https://www.cadmo.ethz.ch/education/thesis/guidelines.html (at the bottom)

IT Service Group of the Department of Computer Science

Master Thesis Lab

• students working in the lab
• assistants responsible for a student who need to book a workstation
• ITCs making the booking

Current Bookings

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Institute for Computing Platforms - Systems Group

Master's and bachelor's theses.

The Systems Group has a variety of projects available, as possible topics for a Masters Thesis, a Semester Projects, or as labs for bachelors or masters students.

• protected page lock Deploying RoFL at Scale [BT]  (PDF, 92 KB)
• protected page lock End-to-End System Designs for Privacy [MT/BT]  (PDF, 95 KB)
• protected page lock Cryptographic Audits for Secure Machine Learning [MT]  (PDF, 96 KB)
• protected page lock Scheme-Independent FHE Compiler for TensorFlow [MT]  (PDF, 75 KB)
• protected page lock Deploying Secure Computation on Heterogeneous Hardware [MT]  (PDF, 285 KB)
• protected page lock Extend an FPGA Collective Offload Engine [MT]  (PDF, 269 KB)
• protected page lock Code generation for heterogeneous architectures [BT]  (PDF, 165 KB)
• protected page lock Differential Private Data and Query Set Generation for Benchmarking  (PDF, 85 KB)
• protected page lock From Threats to Concrete Harms: A New Approach to Privacy Threat Modeling [MT]  (PDF, 84 KB)
• protected page lock Answering subjective queries using vector search [Semester Project]  (PDF, 183 KB)
• protected page lock Optimizing Compound AI Systems [MT/Semester Project]  (PDF, 92 KB)
• Download lock Fast Ternary and Binary Neural Network Inference on CPU and GPU [MT/Semester Project]  (PDF, 84 KB)
• Download lock Low-Latency 64-Channel Stereo Audio Mixing using FPGA [MT/Semester Project]  (PDF, 177 KB)
• Download lock A New Music Notation for Chinese GuQin [MT/Semester Project]  (PDF, 564 KB)

There are several thesis projects available within the Enzian and Sockeye projects:

• protected page lock USB Subsystem Support for an OS Course [Practical work]  (PDF, 90 KB)
• protected page lock A BMC orchestration layer in Rust over seL4 [MT/BT]  (PDF, 98 KB)
• protected page lock Complete semantics of the ARMv8.1-A Memory Management Unit [MT]  (PDF, 91 KB)
• protected page lock Runtime Verification with TeSSLa on Enzian [MT]  (PDF, 96 KB)
• protected page lock Integrating ECI and TileLink [MT/Practical work]  (PDF, 65 KB)
• protected page lock Complete semantics of the ARMv8-R Memory Protection Unit [MT]  (PDF, 93 KB)
• protected page lock Hybrid FPGA-Accelerator Encryption [BT/MT] and Compression  (PDF, 89 KB)
• protected page lock Complete semantics of the RISC-V Memory Management Unit [MT]  (PDF, 96 KB)
• protected page lock Specifying the interconnect of the AMD/Xilinx Ultrascale+ MPSoC [MT]  (PDF, 93 KB)
• protected page lock Semantics of the Intel 64 and ia32 Memory Management Unit [MT]  (PDF, 93 KB)

Ongoing Master's Theses

Past theses.

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Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control

Theses & semester projects.

The Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control offers the following projects to ETH students:

• Studies on Mechatronics (SM)
• Bachelor Theses (BT)
• Semester Projects (SP)
• Master Theses (MT)
• You should read the ETH Citation Etiquette and working accordingly.
• For more information, read the ETH information on plagiarism .
• Furthermore, you are urged to use the Download IDSC Thesis Template (ZIP, 55.7 MB) vertical_align_bottom to write your report.

How to apply:

• Please review the available projects below
• Send an email to the project contact.

ETH Zurich uses SiROP to publish and search scientific projects. For more information visit sirop.org call_made .

Multi-agent predictive control barrier functions

In this project, we want to explore possible extensions of predictive control barrier functions to the multi-agent setting. Predictive control barrier functions [1] allow certifying safety of a system in terms of constraint satisfaction and provide stability guarantees with respect to the set of safe states in case of initial feasibility. This allows augmenting any human or learning-based controller with closed-loop guarantees through a so-called safety filter [2] which is agnostic to the primary control objective. As current formulations are restricted to single agents, the goal is to investigate how this formulation can be extended for multi-agent applications and how the interactions between the agents can be exploited in order to reduce computational overhead. Show details add remove

predictive control, multi-agent systems, safety filter, control barrier functions

Master Thesis

Description

Contact details, more information.

Open this project...  call_made

Published since: 2024-06-25

Applications limited to ETH Zurich

Organization Research Zeilinger

Hosts Didier Alexandre

Topics Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology

Forecasting Market Trends in Maritime Transportation Systems

Maritime transportation accounts for around 80% of global trade volume. It is deeply entangled with important global supply chains and constitutes a network driven by complex dynamics. One of the major driving forces are market rates which in turn influence the decisions of multiple stakeholders. In this project we aim to forecast future market rate trends by leveraging state-of-the art artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques. More specifically we develop a forecasting pipeline based on relevant real-world historic supply-demand imbalances and from real-world historic market rates data. Show details add remove

Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Python, Prediction, Classification

Semester Project , Master Thesis

PLEASE LOG IN TO SEE DESCRIPTION

Published since: 2024-06-14

Applications limited to Department of Mathematics , Department of Computer Science , Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering , Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering

Organization Research Frazzoli

Hosts Albert Marc

Topics Mathematical Sciences , Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Economics

A Control Perspective to Language Recommender Systems

The development of Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and GPT-4, has influenced the field of Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence with their exceptional proficiency in comprehending and generating language, alongside their notable generalization and reasoning abilities. Consequently, recent research efforts have focused on leveraging the capabilities of LLMs to improve recommender systems. Recommender systems significantly influence human behavior by shaping users’ preferences, decision-making processes, and overall engagement with digital content. This project develops on the interpretation of recommender systems (controller) in feedback interaction with the users (system), [3]. By following a similar approach to [2], we will investigate how a careful integration of a LLM with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework can enhance recommender systems by ensuring accurate and adaptable recommendations while considering user preferences and constraints. Understanding the influence of recommender systems over users behaviour and managing it effectively will be enhanced through the MPC framework, which offers a structured and interpretable approach to recommendation optimization. Show details add remove

Large Language Models, MPC, Social Systems

Semester Project , Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)

Published since: 2024-06-11 , Earliest start: 2024-06-11

Organization Automatic Control Laboratory

Hosts De Pasquale Giulia , Amo Carmen

Topics Engineering and Technology

Prioritized and hierarchical reinforcement learning (RL) for gokart racing and urban driving

Abstract Reinforcement learning (RL) has achieved remarkable performance in various domains such as gaming, protein folding, and foundation models. However, efficiently applying RL to real-world applications like go-kart racing and urban driving presents significant challenges due to high-dimensional environments and the lack of structured task decomposition. This thesis proposes addressing these challenges through prioritized rewards and hierarchical task decomposition. By incorporating prioritized experience replay and dynamic reward shaping, the learning process focuses on critical experiences, enhancing efficiency. Hierarchical RL will break down complex tasks into manageable sub-tasks for better strategic planning and execution. The goal is to develop robust and adaptable RL agents capable of high performance in both racing and urban driving scenarios. The student will select a specific application domain, define benchmarks, and potentially conduct real-world testing. The outcomes are expected to contribute significantly to robotics research, with potential publications in top conferences and journals. Pre-requisites include a strong interest in machine learning, RL, optimization, robotics, and proficiency in Python. Prior experience in autonomous vehicles or robotics is a plus. Show details add remove

Published since: 2024-05-28 , Earliest start: 2024-05-28 , Latest end: 2025-02-28

Hosts Zanardi Alessandro, Dr.

Topics Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences

Reinforcement Learning for Go-Kart Racing

Our aim is to create an autonomous racing system capable of swiftly learning optimal racing strategies and navigating tracks more effectively (faster) than traditional methods and human drivers using RL. Show details add remove

robotics, racing, reinforcement learning, autonomy, controls, planning, learning

Published since: 2024-05-08 , Earliest start: 2024-05-03 , Latest end: 2026-07-18

Hosts Di Cicco Maurilio, Dr.

Topics Information, Computing and Communication Sciences

Strategic Interactions of Future Mobility Systems

Mobility is typically self-optimized for a particular region to accommodate internal travel needs. However, as soon as one considers multiple, interacting regions (e.g., urban areas interacting with agglomerations, and agglomerations interacting with rural areas), important coordination issues occur, including scheduling mismatches, fleet allocations, and congestion peaks. In short, a mobility system composed of self-optimized mobility systems seems to often operate suboptimally. In this project, we will investigate the idea of strategic interactions of future mobility stakeholders across heterogeneous regions, such as urban areas, agglomerations, and rural areas, leveraging techniques from network design, optimization, game theory, and policy making. Show details add remove

Optimization, Game theory, Multi-agent interactions, Transportation systems, Robotics

Published since: 2024-04-26 , Earliest start: 2024-04-15 , Latest end: 2024-12-31

Hosts He Mingjia

Topics Mathematical Sciences , Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology

Model predictive stability filters for advanced driver assistance systems

In this project, we want to explore the application of predictive stability filters for automotive applications. Predictive stability filters allow augmenting human or learning-based controllers such that safety in terms of constraint satisfaction as well as stability of a desired setpoint can be guaranteed. Such algorithms present possible solutions for automotive applications such as, e.g., lane keeping. Show details add remove

predictive control; stability filter; automotive

Published since: 2024-04-24

Topics Mathematical Sciences , Engineering and Technology

Safe guaranteed domain exploration with autonomous robots

In many autonomous navigation applications, the robot must interact with the environment to learn and complete tasks. Furthermore, these applications are safety-critical, and crashes cannot be afforded. This necessitates the safe learning of the unknown environment in order to achieve the task objective (e.g., detecting a leak or mapping an area). For example, consider an application of safe exploration in a warehouse with a wheeled robot to identify the source of a gas leak. Show details add remove

Gaussian Processes, Active learning, Bayesian optimization, Model predictive control (MPC), Issac sim simulator

Published since: 2024-04-15 , Earliest start: 2024-05-01 , Latest end: 2025-04-30

Hosts Prajapat Manish

Submodular optimization for scenario sampling in autonomous vehicles safety testing

A key barrier hindering the swift introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in real-world contexts is the challenge in establishing clear safety benchmarks. Specifically, the issue of systematically assessing both performance and safety remains a significant stumbling block within the industry. This challenge is mainly twofold: Firstly, how can we identify an ideal scenario set to evaluate the vehicle's performance within a targeted Operational Design Domain (ODD) and what criteria would be useful in amplifying or paring down this set? Secondly, how do we determine a substantial stopping criteria for the evaluation campaign, and what level of confidence should be attached to the observed performances? Show details add remove

Published since: 2024-04-11 , Earliest start: 2024-04-01

Learning, Predicting and Control Diffusion via Optimal Transport

The stochastic diffusion equations ruling the dynamics of particles at the micro- and nano- scale are captured by energy-minimizing dynamics when observed macroscopically, i.e., at a population level. This framework encompasses, for instance, single cells perturbation responses to chemical, genetic or mechanical stimuli, gene expression and cell differentiation. Recent advances in the theory of optimal transport and optimization in the Wasserstein space have created unprecedented opportunities to tackle these and other problems at scale. This active research area provides an excellent playground for exploring advanced mathematical concepts, deploying sophisticated learning and optimization algorithms, and solving open problems in biology, medicine, and various other fields. The project can be both theoretical and applied, and can include topics on optimization, optimal transport, deep learning, and biology. The project can be tailored to the preferences and experiences of the student. Show details add remove

Diffusion, Optimal Transport, Optimal Control, Optimization, Biology

Published since: 2024-04-09 , Earliest start: 2024-04-14 , Latest end: 2024-09-01

Organization Research D'Andrea

Hosts Terpin Antonio

Topics Mathematical Sciences , Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Chemistry

Estimation and Learning for Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing

Designing filters for jointly estimating thermal fields in Wire-Arc Additive manufacturing and learning the parameters of the underlying models. Show details add remove

State estimation, Optimization, Wire-Arc additive manufacturing, Sensor fusion, Thermal imaging

Published since: 2024-04-02 , Earliest start: 2024-01-01 , Latest end: 2024-08-31

Organization Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory

Hosts Sideris Iason , Muntwiler Simon

The Way of Water: Development of a fleet of water-based drones for live performance

This project focuses on developing autonomous robots for synchronized performances on water. Equipped with kinetic water fountains, RGB lighting, and ultrasonic mist generators, the robots are designed to execute planned choreographies. The system utilizes robotics control, wireless communication, and positioning technologies to coordinate movements, and payload activation, facilitating complex pattern generation and synchronization. The objective is to advance the application of distributed robotic systems in creating structured and cohesive visual displays on water. Show details add remove

Water based rovers, Electronics development, Distributed Robotics, Control Systems, Game design

Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis

Published since: 2024-03-26

Hosts Ramachandran Aswin

Topics Arts , Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology

Direct Projects

The projects from Prof. Chris Onder's group are hosted on the student projects page .

The projects from Prof. Melanie Zeilinger's group are hosted on the student projects page .

Custom Projects

From time to time, project supervisors will develop custom student research projects to fit with a student's particular interests or skills. If you are interested in doing a custom student research project, please email the project supervisor of your choice directly. We recommend that you carefully review their area of research before you contact them. Please note that the decision of whether to develop a custom student project is at the full discretion of the project supervisor.

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Department of Management, Technology, and Economics

Master's thesis.

To conclude your MSc MTEC studies, you will write a Master's thesis. It is a testament to your ability to independently produce a coherent and scientific piece of work.

The Master's thesis is an independent scientific work you will write towards the end of your studies. It will showcase the knowledge and skills you have learned during your studies and prove that you can create an academic contribution in your field of specialisation.

You will be supervised by your tutor who will also help you select a topic and set the aims and bounds of the thesis. Usually, a researcher from your tutor's chair will provide guidance as an advisor. Upon agreement with your supervisor you may write your Master's thesis with a company or at another university abroad. In either of these cases, your tutor will remain the supervisor and grade your thesis.

The Master's thesis i s written on a full-​time basis, lasts six months and earns 30 Credit Points upon successful completion. You are not allowed to be remunerated for writing a thesis as per ETH directive.

You must adhere to the citation etiquette and uphold academic integrity.

The sections below explain how to organise and what to consider for your Master's thesis.

• chevron_right How to select a topic
• chevron_right What to do before starting
• chevron_right What to consider for submitting

Selecting a topic

You will select a topic together with your tutor who will also supervise your Master's thesis. In relation to the topic, your supervisor will define the aim, set the beginning and submission dates of the thesis and communicate the the evaluation criteria in written form to you.

Many chairs publish a list of available topics, but you can also propose your own topic. You can find topics on the web pages of the respective chairs or contact them directly. The corresponding links are listed below, or in the D-MTEC Chair Guide. The latter is a good opportunity to explore and compare the chairs at D-MTEC.

You can also find research projects relevant for Master's theses in our SiROP feed .

We encourage you to think about your Master's thesis early during your studies. You should take elective and supplementary courses in the research area of the chair at which you plan to write your Master's thesis at. Some chairs require an extensive set of courses to qualify.

D-MTEC Chair Guide

Information about the research fields and teaching areas of D-MTEC chairs.

Before starting the Master's thesis

General conditions.

The following conditions must be fulfilled before you start your Master's thesis:

• You have successfully completed your Bachelor's degree
• You have fulfilled any additional admission requirements for the MSc MTEC programme
• You have successfully completed the internship
• You have completed the academic writing course

Registering your Master's thesis

You have to register your Master's theses via myStudies before starting. The registration includes a preliminary title, the starting and submission date, and a task description.

Handing in the Master's thesis

You will have six month's time to complete your Master's theses. After registering the thesis in myStudies and providing a start date, the submission deadline will be determined automatically and displayed in myStudies. You have to deliver the thesis in the form decided upon with your supervisor. It must include a signed declaration of originality which is also provided on myStudies.

Your supervisor will then grade your Master's thesis. It is considered as passed if it is graded with at least 4. You can repeat a failed Master's thesis once. You must choose a new topic and you can change your supervisor if you want.

Submitted Master's theses are archived for 2 years by the chairs.

Late submission

If you hand in your Master's thesis too late, it is considered failed. The Director of Studies may grant an extension of the submission deadline for compelling reasons upon request.

Publication in the ETH Research Collection

A Master's thesis can be published in the ETH Research Collection if the supervisor supports its publication.

• chevron_right ETH Research Collection
• chevron_right Instructions on how to publish your Master's thesis in the ETH Research Collection

ETH honours outstanding Master’s theses with the Silver Medal of ETH Zurich and a financial sum of CHF 2000. To be shortlisted, your Master's thesis must be graded with 6, your GPA must be at least 5.25 and your supervisor has to nominate you to the rector.  The ETH Medal will be awarded at the graduation ceremony (MTEC Day).

External awards

MSc MTEC graduates have also received awards from external organisations, such as the Ernst Blickle Award from the SEW-Eurodrive Foundation, the Wissenschaftspreis awarded by GS1 Germany and the EHI Foundation, the HUMLOG Board Award, the BME Hochschulpreis, or the The Seghezzi Preis.

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Institute of Science, Technology and Policy

Master's thesis.

The Master’s thesis concludes the Master’s degree programme in Science, Technology and Policy. With the Master’s thesis, students demonstrate their ability to conduct scientific research based on the theoretical and methodological knowledge acquired during the MSc programme.

The thesis addresses a particular policy issue chosen by the student and does so in an interdisciplinary manner. Policy analysis plays a significant role in the research and the resulting thesis. Writing the Master’s thesis involves a full-time semester workload (six calendar months full-time, 30 ECTS). Because the thesis must be completed within six months, students are advised to refrain from taking additional courses and/or, as far as financially possible, from pursuing paid employment during this time.

Master's Thesis in short

On this page you can find a short overview of the features and requirements of the Master's thesis.

The complete regulation can be found in the documents below:

• Please check the Download Master's Thesis Guidelines (PDF, 228 KB) vertical_align_bottom .
• Please download the Master’s Thesis Download Assessment Form (PDF, 253 KB) vertical_align_bottom (fillable PDF document).

Students can commence work on the Master's thesis when both of the following conditions are met:

• They have completed their Bachelor's degree.
• They have acquired the number of ECTS points required for the Master's degree in all categories, with the except for credits for electives and the Master's thesis itself.  

The minimum number of credits required in each category is:

• Courses in social sciences: 27 credits
• Minor in natural sciences and engineering: 27 credits
• Case studies: 12 credits

The Master's thesis must be completed within 28 weeks. These 28 weeks include 26 weeks of work and 2 weeks for holidays, sick leave, and other brief absences.

Students are free to choose a start date in agreement with both supervisors. The start date is then registered in myStudies, subject to approval by the supervisor.

This binding deadline for each student is displayed on myStudies. If it is missed without notification, the Master's thesis will be graded as ' failed ' . The Director of Studies can extend the deadline under exceptional circumstances. The reasons must be stated in a written request by the student and the request must be approved by the Studies Director.

There is no required or maximum length. A rule of thumb is 40 - 50 pages, excluding appendices.

• Front-page layout

The front page must contain the following information:

• ETH and ISTP Logo.
• Thesis type (Master's thesis).
• Name of the student.
• Student ID number.
• Master’s degree programme in Science, Technology and Policy.
• Title of the Master's thesis.
• Supervisor and Co-Supervisor, with their academic title and institution.
• Date of submission (dd/mm/yyyy).
• Declaration of originality

Students must submit a signed declaration of originality when they submit their Master's thesis. Each copy needs to contain a Download declaration of originality (PDF, 183 KB) vertical_align_bottom .

If this student uses AI tools for language editing, this is acceptable but must be declared in the declaration of originality. Using AI tools for the substantive content of the thesis is not allowed.  

• Citation etiquette

All students are required to follow the guidelines Download 'Citation etiquette' (PDF, 67 KB) vertical_align_bottom .

Please also visit the webpage on plagiarism on the ETH student portal.

Please be aware that supervisors will normally run Master's theses through PlagScan or a similar platform to identify plagiarism problems before assessing the content of the thesis.

The Master's thesis should be supervised by two professors, who serve as supervisor and co-supervisor, respectively. One of these professors must be from the social sciences. The other professor should be from the natural or engineering sciences or the social sciences. The supervisor must be an ETH Zurich professor. She or he has the lead role in supervising and mentoring the student and grading the thesis. The co-supervisor can be from ETH or another academic institution. Subject to approval by the ISTP studies director, the co-supervisor (whether from within ETH Zurich or another academic institution) can also be a postdoctoral researcher or senior researcher/scientist with demonstrated experience in advising Master's and doctoral students. Such a co-advisor must be independent of the supervisor, i.e., she or he should not be a staff member of the supervisor.

Subject to approval by the supervisor and the ISTP studies director, the Master's thesis research can also be undertaken outside ETH Zurich under the co-supervision of a professor or postdoc/senior researcher at that institution (meeting the same conditions as for the co-supervisor within ETH Zurich, see above). In such cases, the supervisor (who must be an ETH Zurich professor) should assess the submitted Master's thesis independently of the ETH-external co-supervisor and provide a separate assessment and grading proposal. If both supervisor and co-supervisor are from within ETH Zurich, they may provide a jointly agreed assessment.

The supervisor and co-supervisor must, under any conditions, have full access to data and other material when assessing and grading the thesis, if necessary, under a non-disclosure agreement with the external institution. Research findings reported in a Master’s thesis must be replicable by third parties, normally by everyone in the respective scientific field and, in exceptional cases, at least by the supervisor and co-supervisor. Students are also responsible for determining where their research requires approval by the ETH Ethics Committee and, if applicable, secure approval with support from their supervisor.

According to a directive by the rector of ETH Zurich, research for the Master's thesis as such cannot be paid for. That is, paid work time (e.g., in the context of an internship or as a research assistant) cannot be used for work on the Master's thesis. Reimbursements (e.g., for travel costs, additional charges for food or accommodation) are permitted.

The supervisor and co-supervisor have the following duties:

• Define the theme of the Master's thesis in consultation with the student.
• Define the tasks in writing.
• Determine the date on which the student can begin the Master's thesis and the date on which the student can submit the thesis.
• Define the criteria for assessment of the Master's thesis.
• Assess and grade the thesis.
• Finding a topic, supervisors and preparation of the thesis proposal

Students are free to develop their own thesis topic or to select a topic suggested by a prospective supervisor and/or co-supervisor, and they are free to choose a supervisor and a co-supervisor whose interest aligns with a particular topic, subject to the above rules. The thesis must focus on a policy-relevant issue, and policy analysis should play a significant role in the research and resulting thesis. Once a topic is identified and agreed upon by both the student and the supervisor, the student will draft a thesis proposal of around 2 - 5 pages. This proposal must be approved by the supervisor before the research starts. The proposal should cover the following points:

• Supervisor and co-supervisor.
• Research question and its relevance.
• References and relevant scientific literature.
• Potential theoretical arguments addressing this question.
• Empirical research strategy and timeline.

On the following sites, you can find inspiration for potential thesis topics. 

• Student Theses Energy and Technology Policy Group  
• Abschlussarbeiten Institut für Raum- und Landschaftsentwicklung (D-BAUG) (German only)
• external page SiROP call_made
• Registration in myStudies

After the students and supervisors have agreed on a topic and a start date, students need to register for lecture number '860-0900-00 Master's Thesis' on myStudies .

The latest starting date can be 3 months after the end of the semester of registration.

To register the thesis in myStudies, students need to submit:

• Title of the thesis (the title can be changed later on).
• Start date.
• Names of the supervisors.
• Thesis proposal.

The duration of the Master's thesis is set to maximum 28 weeks (6 months plus 2 weeks), and the submission date will be displayed on myStudies .

• The main supervisor must confirm the thesis in myStudies.

The supervisor must confirm the thesis in myStudies for the student to be able to formally begin the Master's thesis. The student office approves the registration in myStudies. Students can start the Master's Thesis only when the status in myStudies is 'Definite'.

• Submission and evaluation

The supervisor will, subject to the consent of the co-supervisor, communicate the grade and the grading sheet(s) for a thesis to the Study Administration within eight weeks after submission, and preferably sooner. The supervisor and co-supervisor must send the grading sheet(s) to the student. They will commonly meet with the student in person or online to provide more detailed feedback.

• Awarding credit points

Students will be awarded 30 ECTS credit points upon successfully completing the thesis.

• Publication in the ETH Research Collection

Students have the opportunity to publish their Master's thesis in the ETH Research Collection. To publish Master's theses in the Research Collection, a letter of recommendation from the main supervisor is required.

• Degree request

Once the Master's thesis is successfully completed and all credits are obtained, students may request their diploma .

The Master's thesis will be graded, and this grade will serve as the student's performance assessment for the lecture unit. Theses are graded on a scale from 1 - 6. Students must earn a 4 or higher in order to pass.

Only the written Master's thesis is evaluated. Presentation of the Master's thesis is not compulsory; however, the ISTP encourages students to present their thesis in a seminar or a poster presentation.

The Master's thesis Download assessment form (PDF, 253 KB) vertical_align_bottom will state the criteria that will be used to evaluate the thesis.

The supervisor  and co-supervisor will evaluate a student's thesis separately. The scores for each criterion are averaged. The average of all of these scores will constitute the final grade. The main supervisor will be responsible for coordinating the grading process and for submitting the student's final grade to the Study Administration.

A Master's thesis that receives a grade lower than 4 may only be repeated once. If repeated, it must address a new theme. The repetition may proceed under a different supervisor and/or co-​supervisor. Repeating a Master's thesis that has received a grade of 4 or higher is not possible.

Master's Thesis Interviews

To gain deeper insight into how the Master's thesis process could look like, check out our interviews with previous Master's students:

• A thesis abroad: Bridging technology decision making and local engagement in Laos

Outstanding Master’s theses are honored with the Silver Medal of ETH Zurich and a financial sum. Please find the directives here. Past STP programme medal recipients include:

• Felix  Zaussinger,  MSc 2021 ( 2022 Medal Recipient)

Since the number of medals awarded is capped, the D-GESS is typically allocated with one medal over the three MA programs (MA CIS, MA GPW and MSc STP) each year. The directors of study will nominate the candidates and take a joint decision. The ETH Medal will be awarded at the Master's degree graduation ceremony.

Master's Theses Awards

- Marion Meyers, MSc 2023: external page 2024 GAIA Masters Student Paper Award call_made

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Environmental Physics

Bachelor and master theses.

We always welcome students who are interested in undertaking their bachelor or master theses with us.  

If you are interested in joining our group for a bachelor, master thesis or an internship please explore our research and contact the corresponding group leader. We are offering theses that span the range of interests in our group, that is theses that tackle questions coming from the physical, through biogeochemical all the way to the classical ecological realms.

Please contact us well ahead of your desired starting date so that we can develop a topic together with you. We are also presenting the currently available thesis topics at the IBP Master thesis fair in the spring semester, and in the IAC master thesis orientation events in the fall semester.

In order to give you an impression of the type of thesis that you can pursue with us, we give you here a list of recently completed theses.

Zhang Siyi: " Biomes Partitioning and Network Analysis of Marine Plankton" (supervised by Meike Vogt, Urs Hofmann Elizondo, and Alexandre Schickele)

Aline Schneuwly: "Impact of the 2023 Marine Heatwave on the North Atlantic Carbon Sink” (supervised by Luke Gregor, Jens Müller, and Nicolas Gruber)

Xinhang Li: "Trends In Marine Plankton Biodiversity over the 21st Century under Different Climate Change Scenarios” (supervised by Meike Vogt, Fabio Benedetti, and Dominik Eriksson)

Danling Ma: "Long-Term Trends and Drivers of Global Ocean Acidification from 1982 to 2020” (supervised by Luke Gregor and Nicolas Gruber)

Andrea von Langen Roson: "Variability Of Water Column Denitrification and its Drivers in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zones" (supervised by Eike Köhn, Nicolas Gruber, and Jana Harri)

Giacomo Poli: "The potential of machine learning algorithms for mapping microplastic concentrations in the ocean” (supervised by Meike Vogt, Fabio Benedetti, and Dominik Eriksson)

Marcel Scheiwiller: "Compound events of temperature and acidification extremes in the California Current System” (supervised by Flora Desmet and Nicolas Gruber)

Nielja Knecht: "The impact of zooplankton calcifiers on the marine carbon cycle” (supervised by Meike Vogt, Fabio Benedetti, and urs Hofmann Elizondo)

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Future Health Technologies

Chantal worked on her Master's thesis at both FHT and ETH Zurich from July 2022 to June 2023. Under the formal guidance of FHT Director, Prof Nicole Wenderoth ; FHT Researcher Dr Hsiao-ju (Rita) Cheng ; and PhD student at NCM Lab, ETH Zurich, Ingrid Odermatt , Chantal contributed to the brain-computer interface (BCI) project with the aim of developing a novel intervention for using a non-invasive brain stimulation technique - trascranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with motor imagery to restore sensorimotor function in individuals with neurological disorders, such as stroke.

Every year, ETH Zurich recognises outstanding Master's and doctoral theses with the Silver Medal and a financial sum.

This award highlights the close collaboration between SEC and ETH Zurich, and how together we advance science for greater impact on individuals with needs. With immense joy, the FHT team are proud of Chantal's acheivement!