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This Position reports to:
R&D Team Lead

OPC UA Field eXchange (OPC UA FX) is envisaged for industrial communication from cloud to controllers and field devices. It caters for a plethora of use cases by also defining a rich set of data models. However, there is a stance in some industries that many OPC UA FX options make it too "resource-heavy".

This thesis is to critically assess how far OPC UA FX is now from being utilized in resource-constrained embedded devices/microcontrollers.

Details

• Period: January/February - June/July, 2026, 5 months
• Number of credits: 30 ECTS
• Number of students for this thesis work: 2
• Location: On-site, ABB Corporate Research (Västerås)

Your role and responsibilities

• Study communication architecture and data models of the OPC UA FX specification
• Review conformity of existing OPC UA implementations to that specification
• Run a selected OPC UA implementation for case-study embedded devices/microcontrollers

Research questions:
How "resource-demanding" is OPC UA FX? What are response times of its communication services in microcontrollers?

Approach:

• Analyze OPC UA implementations, also given their suitability to run under embedded operating systems
• Configure different OPC UA FX communication services in microcontrollers
• Define methodology for evaluating computing and communication performance of OPC UA FX
• Measure the performance and associated resource needs in testbed with microcontrollers

Qualifications for the role

• General understanding of communication architectures and paradigms
• Previous experience of working with embedded devices and associated operating systems
• Good software development skills, proficiency in C or C++ is advantageous
• Good spoken and written English

More about us

Supervisor Ognjen Dobrijevic, ognjen.dobrijevic@se.abb.com, will answer all your questions about the thesis topic and expectations. Recruiting Manager Linus Thrybom, +46 73 0809906, will answer your other questions.

Positions are filled continuously. Please apply with your CV, academic transcripts, and a cover letter in English. We look forward to receiving your application!

Join us. Be part of the team where progress happens, industries transform, and your work shapes the world. Run What Runs the World.

A Future Opportunity
Please note that this position is part of our talent pipeline and not an active job opening at this time. By applying, you express your interest in future career opportunities with ABB.

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