Master Thesis - Coordinating Functional Safety and Cybersecurity

Title:
Master Thesis - Challenges and Synergies of Coordinating Functional Safety and Cybersecurity in the Context of Machinery


Background and objective:
Nowadays, functional safety and cybersecurity raise more and more concerns in various industries including machinery. Those two aspects have their own focuses, and to some extent interacting and overlapping with each other.
Within Volvo Construction Equipment where the electronic system is growing rapidly with connectivity, autonomous functions and electrification system safety and security are crucial for Volvo products to meet our customers’ needs and expectations.
How to feasibly coordinate functional safety and cybersecurity is a challenging topic. Reasonable decouple as well as synergy between each other would be necessary, among others, for stable safety approval and cybersecurity approval respectively.
With this background, this thesis work is aiming for exploring possible linkages between functional safety and cybersecurity, in the context of the machinery on-board electronic system.


Main Tasks:
Understand key concepts and processes within functional safety and cybersecurity areas, in selected standards and guidelines.
Investigate the differences and potential similarities between functional safety and cybersecurity towards the electronic systems.
Summarize the challenges for coordinating functional safety and cybersecurity.
Propose possible approach(es) to coordinate functional safety and cybersecurity in machinery, on a generic level.

Methods:
Literature review.
Interviews
Workshop, etc.

Requirements:
The candidate should have a bachelor’s degree and is now completing his/her master's degree, ideally majoring in safety-critical system engineering, embedded systems or similar.
The candidate should be self-driven, with good learning and analytical capabilities, as well as have good documentation and communication skills in English.
Great interest about functional safety and/or cybersecurity

Provided by VCE:
Hands-on insights from the machinery industry.
Availability of an industrial supervisor for weekly meeting(s).
Engage in this thesis work could be a step forward for the candidate student’s future career, especially for who would like to pursue career in functional safety or cybersecurity areas.
Remuneration for the thesis work.

Other info:
One or possibly two master students
30 credits thesis (ECTS).

Kick-off date:
ASAP according to agreement


Contact person:
Yin Chen. Functional safety specialist. Email: yin.chen@volvo.com


Kindly note that due to GDPR, we will not accept applications via mail. Please use our career site.