Master Thesis: Hardware-Accelerated MACsec for Secure gPTP in Automotive TSN

About the role

You will set up an automotive Ethernet network supporting gPTP and hardware‑accelerated MACsec. As part of the validation process you will verify that gPTP communication is effectively protected by MACsec and operates correctly, and you will quantify its impact on clock offset, peer delay, synchronization stability, convergence, latency and jitter.

Key responsibilities

• Configure and integrate a hardware‑accelerated MACsec solution into an automotive Ethernet network with gPTP.
• Validate MACsec protection of gPTP traffic and assess synchronization performance metrics.
• Measure and analyze clock offset, peer delay, latency, jitter and convergence under MACsec.
• Compare the hardware MACsec implementation with a Linux software‑MACsec reference where feasible.

Required profile

• Enrolled in a Master program in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Communications or a related discipline with very good grades.
• Motivated to work on a research‑oriented engineering topic and able to discuss technical challenges and results.
• Fluent in English; German language skills are a plus.

Required skills

• Strong programming experience in C/C++ and Python.
• Good knowledge of Linux operating systems and embedded systems development.