Thesis work - Visualization of AUTOSAR ARXML and State Machines through Interactive UI Prototypes

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 within 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 Core SW at Deceleration and Steering.  

Problem Statement

There is a gap between the richness of ARXML/state machine descriptions and the usability of tools available to engineers. While several commercial tools provide basic visualization, they are often:
•    Not flexible for custom queries,
•    Tightly coupled to proprietary ecosystems,
•    Lacking lightweight UI approaches that can be integrated into modern workflows (e.g., web-based, JSON-driven).

A prototype that ingests ARXML/state machine models and visualizes them via an interactive, lightweight front-end could significantly improve usability, traceability, and developer experience.

Objective

The thesis aims to investigate and evaluate tools and frameworks for visualizing ARXML and state machines, with the end goal of developing a proof-of-concept UI that supports intuitive visualization and querying.

Scope of the thesis work

The thesis will investigate how different information modeling frameworks (RDF/OWL, property graphs, JSON/JSON-LD) can be applied to represent ARXML and state machine semantics in a way that supports visualization and querying.

Key activities:
1.    Survey & Comparison: Evaluate RDF vs property graphs vs JSON approaches in terms of expressiveness, query power, tool support, and integration with visualization frameworks.
2.    Mapping Design: Define how ARXML entities (signals, SWCs, ports, interfaces) and state machine constructs (states, transitions, events) map into nodes/edges/triples.
3.    Prototype Development: Implement a pipeline that extracts ARXML + state machines → transforms into chosen model (e.g., RDF graph or JSON graph) → visualizes via a web-based UI.
4.    Evaluation: Compare the ease of querying, scalability, and usability of each approach for typical automotive engineering questions (traceability, impact analysis, signal flow visualization).

What you'll bring

•    Educational Background: Master’s student in Software Engineering, Computer Science
•    Core Competencies: Strong programming background, ability to navigate large/complex code bases, and skills in front-end technologies (React, D3.js or similar).
•    Beneficial Skills: Familiarity with AUTOSAR/ARXML, state machine modeling, and experience with graph or semantic web technologies (Neo4j, RDF, JSON-LD).
•    Work Location: On-site presence is preferred for collaboration and access to resources, but remote work can be considered.

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.
•    30 ECTS (Master academic credits) in agreement with your Thesis Advisor in University
•    This thesis is to be conducted by 2 Students working in pair.