About me

Since March 2021, I am a research associate at the Chair of Software and Systems Engineering (Prof. Dr. Pretschner). My main research focus lies on test ending criteria and test case generation for testing automated and autonomous driving systems. In this context, I study the scenario-based testing approach.

Prior to joining the chair, I worked as an IT specialist at the BMW Group in the vehicle data collection department for three years after completing the Speed-Up bachelor 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. 

Student supervision

Title	Type
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

Title	Type
Anomaly Detection of Connectivity Events in the Automotive Domain	Master 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.

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