Curriculum Vitae
Since May 2025, I am a research associate at the Cyber Physical Systems Group (Prof. Dr. Althoff), working on developing, testing and operating automated construction robots.
From March 2021 to April 2025, I was a research associate at the Chair of Software and Systems Engineering (Prof. Dr. Pretschner). My main research focus lied on test ending criteria and test case generation for testing automated and autonomous driving systems. In this context, I studied the scenario-based testing approach.
Prior to joining academia, I worked as an IT specialist at the BMW Group in the vehicle data collection department for three years after completing the Speed-Up scholarship program at the BMW Group during my bachelor studies in Automotive Computer Science. I hold a masters degree in Robotics, Cognition, Intelligence from TU Munich. Besides my technical expertise, I advanced my management and entrepreneurial skill as scholarship holder of the Bayerische EliteAkademie, Manage&More and Leadership Talent Academy by UnternehmerTUM.
Offered Thesis Topics
I am always looking for self-motivated students who are interested in writing a thesis related to my area of research. If you are considering one of the currently offered topics or want to discuss your own research idea, please get in touch via email including your CV, transcript of records, and a brief statement of your motivation.
!! Software and Systems Engineering Hiwi-Position up to 20h/week !!
• Software and Systems Engineering: help to design, develop, and integrate the software and hardware systems that enable our robots to sense, think, and act autonomously in complex environments
• Support in software and hardware reliability testing: apply cutting edge AI testing techniques which includes to familiarise yourself with simulation techniques and sensor data processing
• Assist in risk evaluations, apply probabilistic modeling and safety assessment methods
Thesis Supervision
| Open | |
| From the laboratory to open environments: Reachability-based safety verification | Master Thesis/Guided Research |
| Modular and Compositional Risk Assessment for Modular Robots in Unstructured Environments | Master Thesis/Guided Research |
| Metamorphic Testing of AI-based Construction Robots | Bachelor Thesis/Guided Research |
| CI/CD Pipeline for a Construction Robot Application | Bachelor Thesis |
| In Progress | |
| Risk Assessment for Mobile Robots on Construction Sites | Risk Lab |
| Finished | |
| Anomaly Detection of Connectivity Events in the Automotive Domain | Master Thesis |
| Test Case Generation for Robust Behavior During Component Failures in Collaborating Autonomous Aerial Vehicles | Master Thesis (with D.Marson) |
| Benchmark for Autonomous Vehicle Testing | Bachelor Thesis |
| Metamorphic Testing of Radar-Based Deep Learning Object Detectors | Master Thesis (with S. Speth) |
| Benchmark for Autonomous Vehicle Testing | Guided Research |
| Search Space Creation for Testing Autonomous Vehicles | Master Thesis |
| Applying Safety Testing to Collaborative Autonomous Drohnes (UAVs) | Bachelor Thesis (with D.Marson) |
| Data-driven derivation of logical scenarios in the intersection context | Master Thesis |
| Scenario description generation framework | Scientific supervision of students of the Vanderbilt University (with CJ) |
| Automatic derivation of traffic scenario instance descriptions for testing automated and autonomous driving systems in the intersection context (with CJ) | Bachelor Thesis |
| Automatic derivation of traffic scenario instance descriptions for testing automated and autonomous driving systems in the highway context (with CJ) | Bachelor Thesis |
| Tamper-proof Inverse Transparency Logs with Intel SGX (with VZ) | Bachelor Thesis |
Teaching
| Semester | Course |
| Summer 2025 | Introduction to Model-based System Engineering – Develop Your Own Car (in cooperation with fortiss) |
| Winter 2024/2025 | Automotive Software Development (IN2106, IN4124) |
| Summer 2024 | Advanced Topics of Software Testing |
| Winter 2023/2024 | Introduction to Model-based System Engineering – Develop Your Own Car (in cooperation with fortiss) Automotive Software Development (IN2106, IN4124) |
| Summer 2023 | Advanced Topics of Software Testing |
| Winter 2022/2023 | Introduction to Model-based System Engineering – Develop Your Own Car (in cooperation with fortiss) |
| Summer 2022 | Advanced Topics of Software Testing (guest contribution) |
| Winter 2021/2022 | From Sub-Systems to Systems of Systems – Developing Autonomous Driving Functions (in cooperation with fortiss) |
| Summer 2021 | Advanced Topics of Software Testing |
Publications
Kolb, Nicola, Florian Huber, and Alexander Pretschner. "Automatically Improving Scenario Descriptions Derived From Recorded Traffic" IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles (accepted for publication).
Kolb, Nicola, Tabea Schmidt, Joachim Fröhlich, and Alexander Pretschner. "When to Apply Scenario-Based Testing to a New System Domain?" 2023 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC). IEEE, 2023.
Kolb, Nicola, Claudius Jordan, Florian Huber, and Alexander Pretschner. "Automatic Evaluation of Automatically Derived Semantic Scenario Instance Descriptions" 2022 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC). IEEE, 2022.
Kolb, Nicola, Hauer, Florian, Golagha, Mojdeh, Pretschner, Alexander. "Data-Driven Assessment of Parameterized Scenarios for Autonomous Vehicles". In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer International Publishing, 2022
Kolb, Nicola, Florian Hauer, and Alexander Pretschner. "Fitness Function Templates for Testing Automated and Autonomous Driving Systems in Intersection Scenarios." 2021 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC). IEEE, 2021.
Scientific Presentations
| Title | Event | Date |
| Scenario-based Testing of Autonomous Vehicles | BMW Summer School 2024 | 01.07 2024 |
| When to Apply Scenario-based Testing to a New System Domain | ITSC 2023 | 25.09.2023 |
| Assessing Scenario Instance Descriptions | ITSC 2022 | online recording |
| Suchbasierte Testfallgenerierung und Wiederverwendbarkeit im Kreuzungskontext | AutoTest 2022 | 20.10.2022 |
| Assessing Parameterized Scenarios | SAFECOMP 2022 | 09.09.2022 |
| Vollständigkeit von szenario-basierten Tests für autonome Fahrsysteme: Eine multidimensionale Herausforderung | SAFE.TECH 2022 TÜV SÜD | 10.05.2022 |
| Fitness Functions in Intersection Scenarios | ITSC 2021 | online recording |