Aalto University Automation and Electrical Engineering Master’s Thesis Guide: 30 ECTS, ELEC-E0210 and 2027 Deadlines

Aalto University’s Master’s Programme in Automation and Electrical Engineering (AEE) is a 120 ECTS Master of Science (Technology) programme organised by the School of Electrical Engineering. The current 2026-2028 curriculum has three majors: Control, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CRAS), Electrical Power and Energy Engineering (EPEE), and Electronic and Digital Systems (EDS).

These majors cover very different technical problems, from robotics and autonomous systems to power grids, electric drives, sensors, embedded systems and intelligent electronic devices. However, their current thesis administration is shared. All three majors use the same 65 ECTS major structure, the same separate 2 ECTS ELEC-E0210 Master's Thesis Process, and the same programme-level thesis workflow. For that reason, one AEE thesis guide is more accurate than three duplicated administrative guides.

The formal thesis is 30 ECTS. The current curriculum lists ELEC.thes as the standard thesis code and ELEC.matr as the 0 ECTS maturity entry. One important qualification is that the final thesis code must correspond to the supervisor’s school or department. ELEC.thes is the normal code for ELEC supervisors, but a student supervised from another school may need a different code in Sisu.

Degree structure and the separate thesis-process course

The current degree structure is 120 ECTS: 65 ECTS major studies, 30 ECTS master’s thesis and 25 ECTS elective studies. Each of the three current majors lists ELEC-E0210 Master's Thesis Process, 2 ECTS, normally in the second study year.

The 2 ECTS course is separate from the 30 ECTS thesis. Do not describe the thesis as 32 ECTS. ELEC-E0210 supports the beginning of thesis work, especially research planning and process control, while ELEC.thes remains the assessed 30 ECTS research project.

The curriculum also lists ELEC-E0110 Academic Skills in Master's Studies, 3 ECTS, across the majors. These supporting studies matter because the thesis is expected to demonstrate scientific reasoning, engineering judgement and academic communication rather than only a working technical implementation.

The thesis is a six-month research project

Aalto describes the master’s thesis as an individual research project connected to the student’s advanced studies and documented as a written report. It must be based on existing scientific knowledge and carried out according to scientific research principles, good engineering and scientific practice, ethical requirements and appropriate academic source use.

The target duration is six months full-time. Aalto translates the 30 ECTS scope into approximately 810 hours of work on average. A different schedule can be agreed for justified reasons, but it should be explicitly agreed with the supervisor. The programme also warns that exceeding the agreed target duration may affect grading.

The actual thesis start is the point when the student and supervisor agree that the project has begun. It is not automatically the later date when formal topic approval is recorded in MyStudies. This makes early schedule agreement important, especially in company projects where employment dates and university approval dates may not be identical.

When to do the thesis

The programme’s two-year model places the thesis mainly in the spring of the second study year, but Aalto explicitly says this is not a restriction. Students can use another schedule when it fits their studies, topic, supervision and practical research arrangements.

The model schedule is still useful. It encourages preliminary planning well before the main research period, topic searching during the second-year autumn, and a six-month project in which research, writing and final review develop together. In the model, the sixth month includes final supervisor review, the seminar presentation and final submission.

Aalto calls 31 July the last possible deadline inside the standard two-year model schedule. That should not be misunderstood as the only annual thesis deadline. The School of Electrical Engineering publishes several Degree Programme Committee thesis-evaluation deadlines throughout the year.

Prerequisites before beginning

Before beginning the thesis, the student must at least have completed the bachelor’s degree and have an approved study plan in Sisu. Thesis work should therefore be integrated into the degree plan rather than treated as an unrelated external project.

This becomes especially important when the thesis is supervised outside the student’s home department, when elective studies are still being adjusted, or when the student is planning to submit the thesis and graduation request at the same time. The Sisu plan needs to reflect the correct thesis code and completed degree structure.

Start with a preliminary MyStudies thesis record

The programme uses the Thesis tab in MyStudies as the central administrative record. A preliminary thesis plan can be created before the final topic, supervisor and advisors have been formally approved.

The early record can include the degree programme, preliminary topic and thesis language, supervisor/advisor information if already known, planned start and end dates, and information about whether the thesis may be done for a company, university or another commissioner. The initial topic can still change.

Aalto’s goal is for second-year ELEC students to have the basic thesis-plan information in MyStudies during the autumn and to keep the record current. However, students should not send the preliminary record for formal approval before the final topic and supervision have actually been agreed.

Thesis language and degree language

AEE is a multilingual programme. The primary teaching language in the majors is English, but the thesis may be written in English, Finnish or Swedish. The language of the master’s thesis determines the primary language of the degree.

The language decision should therefore be made consciously and early enough to plan the thesis template, abstract, supervision and maturity requirements. Students writing in English should not assume that every administrative field or language requirement is automatically resolved simply because the programme is mainly taught in English.

Finding a topic across the three majors

Students are mainly responsible for finding their thesis topic. Aalto does not provide one universal list of every available AEE thesis topic. Common routes include a company or public-sector thesis position, an Aalto research-group project, or an independently proposed topic agreed with a suitable supervisor.

The three majors allow very different research designs. CRAS theses may involve control theory, robotics, autonomous systems, machine perception, industrial software or intelligent systems. EPEE theses may involve power systems, energy conversion, electric drives, power electronics, renewable integration, storage, hydrogen or smart buildings. EDS theses may involve embedded systems, sensors, electronics, health technology, signal processing, hardware/software co-design or intelligent devices.

Because of this breadth, there is no single compulsory thesis method for the whole programme. Depending on the research question, a thesis may use experiments, measurements, simulation, modelling, optimisation, control design, software development, data analysis, hardware prototyping or a combination of methods.

What happens if you cannot find a topic

The programme puts primary responsibility for topic search on the student, but it also provides a safety net. If a student is ready to begin the thesis and has not found a suitable topic through companies, research groups or independent approaches, the School is obliged to arrange an independent master’s thesis topic.

Students should still be active: contact professors whose research matches the intended field, discuss possible topic areas, and ask the responsible professor for the major or Learning Services for direction when the search is not progressing.

Supervisor and advisor rules

The thesis supervisor must be an Aalto professor, university lecturer, or Aalto staff/senior scientist working in ELEC. The supervisor is responsible for the scientific validity, academic format and overall quality of the thesis.

The thesis must also have one or two advisors. An advisor must hold at least a master’s degree. In company theses, the advisor is often the person providing day-to-day technical guidance, helping with experimental work, implementation, access to systems or data, and practical feedback during writing. The supervisor may also act as an advisor.

A supervisor and topic can come from another Aalto school when the topic remains related to the student’s advanced studies. This flexibility is useful for interdisciplinary work, but it creates an administrative consequence: the thesis code may need to follow the supervisor’s school or department rather than automatically remaining ELEC.thes.

Check the thesis code when supervision comes from outside ELEC

The current AEE curriculum lists ELEC.thes as the standard 30 ECTS thesis code. The graduation page adds an important rule: the thesis code must correspond to the supervisor’s school or department.

Aalto gives common examples: ELEC.thes for ELEC supervisors, Men.thes for the Department of Mechanical Engineering and CS.thes for the Department of Computer Science. If the supervisor is elsewhere or the correct code is unclear, the student should confirm it with the supervisor and Learning Services before graduation.

This is a programme-specific detail that should not be ignored. Using the wrong thesis code can create unnecessary Sisu and graduation problems even when the academic thesis itself is correct.

From a topic idea to formal approval

For a company topic, Aalto recommends first preparing a short preliminary plan, preferably with the company advisor. At this stage the plan can be up to one page and should describe the proposed topic, research problem, motivation and goal, possible methodology or experimental implementation, and a preliminary content outline.

Once the topic and supervision have been agreed, the student applies in MyStudies for approval of the supervisor, advisor or advisors, and topic. The final title does not need to be frozen at this point; it can develop during the project as long as it remains within the approved field.

These approval applications are processed continuously and do not have fixed topic-approval dates. However, Aalto states that processing may take up to one month, and the application should be submitted at least one month before final thesis submission. Topic and supervision must be approved before the final thesis can be sent for evaluation.

Initial meeting and ELEC-E0210

At the beginning of the project, the student and supervisor, and where relevant the advisors, should hold an initial master’s thesis meeting. This is the right place to agree the research problem, scope, milestones, six-month target, review practices, research resources, confidentiality boundaries, seminar timing and intended final committee deadline.

All three current AEE majors list ELEC-E0210 Master's Thesis Process, 2 ECTS. The course helps students get started and prepare the research plan. Registration should follow the current Sisu and MyCourses implementation once topic and supervision are sufficiently established. The public guidance notes that registration is possible during teaching periods, with possible summer restrictions.

Because live course implementations can change, assessed ELEC-E0210 tasks should always follow the current MyCourses instructions rather than an old checklist copied from another year.

Building the research plan

For students not using the course, the public ELEC thesis page gives a useful 2–3 page research-plan model. It contains the research problem and research questions, state of the art, methodology, milestones and a monthly schedule, plus a preliminary list of about 5–10 references.

For AEE students, this structure is a strong planning framework even though ELEC-E0210 is compulsory in the current majors. A robotics thesis needs a clear evaluation strategy, not just a robot that moves. A power-systems thesis needs a defensible model, assumptions and validation. An embedded-system thesis needs criteria for performance, reliability, sensing or computation. The research plan should make those academic evaluation choices explicit before implementation grows too large.

Writing and thesis format

Aalto provides master’s thesis templates in LaTeX and Microsoft Word, with LaTeX recommended on the current ELEC thesis page. The template helps with institutional structure, but it does not define the research contribution.

The public AEE instructions do not publish one universal page count or word count for the three majors. That is appropriate because a control-theory thesis, a grid simulation, a power-electronics experiment and an embedded-device project can require different evidence and presentation structures.

Students should therefore agree appropriate scope with the supervisor and use strong disciplinary examples to determine the balance between literature, method, implementation, results and discussion rather than importing a page range from another Aalto school.

Turnitin before and at final submission

Turnitin is a required part of the process. Before final MyStudies submission, students should generate a similarity report, review it and correct the thesis where needed. Aalto recommends using Turnitin throughout drafting rather than waiting until the final week.

At final submission, MyStudies automatically generates a similarity report visible to both the student and supervisor. It also creates an AI report that is available to the supervisor. The final upload is therefore not a trial submission.

The programme encourages students to use a supervisor’s/advisor’s MyCourses Turnitin workspace where possible because this makes academic interpretation of the report easier. An independent student workspace is also available for drafts.

AI use in the thesis and the maturity boundary

The current AEE thesis page is more specific than a generic statement that ‘AI is allowed’. It says AI should primarily be used to clarify text and structure and for paraphrasing, and it warns students not to use AI to create thesis text from their keywords, themes or ideas. Any use in research or writing must be transparent and the supervisor should know exactly how it was used.

The university-wide rule also says students remain responsible for submitted work and cannot present unmodified AI-generated text as their own. Most importantly, AI is prohibited in maturity exams.

This matters directly because the AEE thesis abstract serves as the maturity essay. The maturity component is therefore not a safe place to apply general thesis AI allowances. Students should follow the no-AI maturity rule for the assessed abstract.

Public thesis and company confidentiality

The approved master’s thesis is a public document and cannot contain confidential sections. If a company or commissioner provides confidential data, trade secrets or internal material, those materials must remain outside the evaluated thesis or be transformed into a public, coherent academic presentation that does not reveal confidential content.

Online publication consent is a different issue. A student may choose not to make the full thesis directly downloadable in Aaltodoc, but that does not make the thesis confidential. Thesis metadata and the abstract remain publicly available, and the public thesis can still be requested through the university process.

This distinction should be agreed with a company before the research starts, not during final editing.

Compulsory seminar presentation and maturity essay

A seminar presentation is compulsory. The schedule and arrangements are agreed with the supervisor. When applying for thesis approval, the student indicates whether the presentation has already been held or gives the planned date.

The presentation must be completed no later than the relevant thesis/graduation submission deadline. During evaluation, the supervisor records the presentation as completed in MyStudies.

The thesis abstract is the maturity essay. When the abstract is completed according to the thesis-template instructions, a separate maturity essay does not need to be arranged. Because the abstract carries this maturity function, the current Aalto prohibition on AI in maturity exams must be respected.

Final MyStudies submission

For final approval, make sure the supervisor, advisor or advisors and topic are already approved. Convert the thesis to PDF/A, keep the file below 100 MB, complete the required MyStudies information, upload the final file and accept the Turnitin conditions.

The electronic file should be the final corrected version. After final submission, the thesis can no longer be modified. The supervisor then writes an evaluation statement and grade proposal, and the Degree Programme Committee makes the thesis evaluation and grade decision. The statement and decision become available to the student in MyStudies after the committee meeting, and the decision can be appealed under the university process.

Confirmed 2027 thesis-evaluation deadlines

The current AEE thesis page publishes eight deadlines in the 2027 committee cycle:

• 31 December 2026 → committee 25 January 2027;
• 17 February 2027 → 8 March 2027;
• 21 April 2027 → 17 May 2027;
• 26 May 2027 → 14 June 2027;
• 30 July 2027 → 23 August 2027;
• 22 September 2027 → 11 October 2027;
• 17 November 2027 → 7 December 2027;
• 31 December 2027 → January 2028.

These are thesis-evaluation/application deadlines linked to Degree Programme Committee meetings. Recheck the live Aalto page before final planning because cycle-sensitive dates can change.

Do not confuse graduation-only dates with thesis deadlines

The graduation page also lists dates such as 27 January, 24 March, 23 June, 25 August and 20 October 2027. These rows explicitly say they are only for students who have already had the master’s thesis approved and registered in Sisu, and there is no Degree Programme Committee meeting on those dates.

They are therefore not extra thesis-evaluation deadlines. A student whose thesis still needs approval should plan around a real committee-linked thesis deadline, not a graduation-only date.

Graduation through Sisu

Graduation is a separate action in Sisu. When all other required courses are completed and registered, the thesis and maturity requirement can be submitted for evaluation at the same time as the graduation request.

Before requesting graduation, the personal study plan must be valid and approved, the thesis code must correspond to the supervisor’s school/department, and the student must be registered as attending. Uploading the thesis in MyStudies does not automatically submit the Sisu graduation request.

A practical final check is therefore to treat MyStudies and Sisu as connected but separate systems: MyStudies manages the thesis record and evaluation submission, while Sisu controls the degree plan and graduation request.

A practical six-month workflow

Before Month 1, create or update the preliminary MyStudies record, identify topic areas, contact potential supervisors and resolve company or laboratory practicalities. In Month 1, agree the topic and supervision, hold the initial meeting, register for ELEC-E0210, prepare the research plan and submit the formal MyStudies topic/supervision approval.

During Months 2–4, perform the main research, experiments, measurements, simulation, modelling, software or hardware work while writing continuously. In Month 5, consolidate results, interpretation and conclusions and use Turnitin before the final supervisor review. In Month 6, complete corrections, give the seminar presentation, finalise the maturity abstract, validate PDF/A and submit before the intended committee deadline.

If the supervisor is outside ELEC, add one more task early: confirm the correct thesis code in Sisu. Do not leave that administrative question until the graduation request.

Final checklist

Before final submission, confirm that you are following the 2026-2028 AEE structure; ELEC-E0210 remains separate from the 30 ECTS thesis; your supervisor/advisor/topic are approved; the thesis code matches the supervisor’s school/department; the research method fits the actual technical question; confidential material is outside the public thesis; Turnitin has been reviewed; AI use is transparent and the maturity abstract follows the no-AI rule; the seminar presentation is completed; the final file is PDF/A below 100 MB; the deadline is a real committee-linked thesis deadline; and the separate Sisu graduation request is completed when eligible.

The main planning principle is to treat the AEE thesis as a six-month research project plus disciplined administration. The three majors differ intellectually, but the current process is shared. Topic and method should be major-specific; MyStudies, ELEC-E0210, supervision approval, Turnitin, presentation, maturity, PDF/A, committee grading and graduation boundaries should be handled systematically.