Bachelor Thesis Work - CAPL-lint - A Static Analysis Tool for Automotive Test Scripts

About this opportunity - Background

Innovation starts with being curious. At Volvo Cars, we believe that being curious and truly committed to understanding people is the key to future success. We are looking for driven and motivated students interested in pursuing their master thesis in Vehicle Engineering during the spring term 2026.

At Vehicle Engineering, our responsibility spans the entire chassis, interior, climate, body & exterior functions, mechanical Integration and a range of vehicle attributes with impact on design and customer experience of our complete product. Across these domains and all development cycles we will lead an effective delivery operation on complete level in close sync with other Engineering units, functions and stakeholders across the company.

This thesis work is within the area of Software Factory & Release.

Background & Motivation

CAPL (Communication Access Programming Language) is a domain-specific language widely used in Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing to simulate and validate ECU behavior. Despite its importance, CAPL lacks modern development tooling support. In particular, there is no dedicated linter to enforce coding standards, detect common mistakes, or improve maintainability. This gap creates inefficiencies and increases the risk of hidden errors in large test suites.
This thesis aims to address that gap by designing and implementing a CAPL-specific linter (CAPL-lint), inspired by static analysis techniques used in general-purpose programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and C/C++.

Objectives
•    Parser & AST Generation: Design and implement a CAPL parser and Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) generator, forming the basis for structured analysis of CAPL scripts.
•    Linting Engine: Develop a modular static analysis engine capable of detecting issues such as unused variables, unreachable code, inconsistent naming, and poor event handling, tailored to CAPL’s event-driven model.
•    Usable Tooling: Deliver a command-line interface (CLI) that integrates into HIL testing workflows and CI/CD pipelines, ensuring extensibility and compatibility with CANoe-based environments.
•    Evaluation: Assess the tool on real-world CAPL codebases. Metrics will include rule effectiveness, false positive rates, performance, and developer feedback.

Scope of the thesis work

This research investigates the applicability and impact of static code analysis in domain-specific languages used for automotive testing, with a focus on CAPL. While linters are widely adopted in mainstream programming languages to enforce standards, detect bugs, and improve maintainability, their use in embedded systems and proprietary languages remains limited.

The study will include a comparative analysis of existing linting tools across languages such as Python, JavaScript, and C/C++, identifying principles that can be adapted to CAPL. It will explore challenges such as CAPL’s limited public documentation, its proprietary nature, and its tight integration with simulation environments like CANoe.

The research further examines the benefits of a CAPL-specific linter in improving code quality, test reliability, and developer productivity in HIL workflows. At the same time, it will evaluate the inherent limitations of static analysis in embedded contexts, including false positives, rule generalization, and integration complexity. The outcome will contribute to the broader understanding of how static analysis can be effectively applied to domain-specific languages, potentially influencing future tooling strategies in safety-critical software development.

Maturity

The CAPL-lint project is at the ideation stage. No implementation exists yet; the current focus is on defining the problem, gathering requirements, and assessing feasibility. Although early in its lifecycle, the project is considered high priority due to its potential to significantly improve code quality, maintainability, and team efficiency in automotive test automation. The next step is to validate industry needs and gather stakeholder input before roadmap integration.

What you'll bring

Two Bachelors’ students with a background in software engineering, programming languages, or test automation. Familiarity with static analysis techniques, compiler design, or CAPL/C-like languages is highly desirable.

Duration

•    Tentative proposed thesis work period: 19th January 2026 to 26th of June 2026 (dates can be flexible with +/- 7 days)
•    The duration for this thesis work is 20 weeks.
•    15 ECTS (Master academic credits) in agreement with your Thesis Advisor in University
•    This thesis is to be conducted by 2 Students working in pair.