Masterthesis - optimization/design a board - help required
I agree that the amount of work you are describing is big. But it is feasible if you split it into smaller manageable tasks.
I would suggest to take a paper and pencil and split your design into functional blocks. The goal here is to try to create smaller independent things. Then you define the interface between the blocks.
That way, when designing one of theses blocks, you only have to care about the content of the block itself and the interfaces to the other blocks. Nothing else.
For instance:
You have to design the power supply part of you board.
The interfaces are:

Input: 12V to 24V
Output A: ​12V at XX Amps (the XX amps requirement comes from the actuator block)
Output B: 3V3 at YY Amps (the YY amps requirement comes from the ESP block, the LAN block,...)
Other requirements such as stability, ripple, etc...

You don't need anything else to design your power supply. Thus now you can start designing the block.
Select the chip, do the schematics, if unsure you can even prototype it.
Then you move to the next block, the LAN part for instance.

Input: 3v3 ( at the end of the design phase you can put here what is the works case consumption of that block for the 3v3, this is useful for the design of the power supply block)
IO with the ESP: RMII ? SPI ? I2C? how many pins? IO voltages 3v3?

For each block you can take inspiration from the &quot;application&quot; page of the datasheet of the chip you are using. I said &quot;inspiration&quot; not dumb &quot;copy paste&quot; !
This depends on the schematics capture software you use, but a good practice is to put one block on one schematics page, and use &quot;hierarchical pages&quot; on that software. That allows you to control which signal on a schematic page goes out of that page. The goal here is too keep thing isolated unless you decide otherwise. That isolation is what makes complex things manageable and kept under control.
Once your schematics is captured it's time to check the BOM (Bill of Material). Are you sure that all the components you have put on that schematics are available ? Can you order them and get them on time ? ( I recently designed a small sound card that uses a STM32F730. I prototyped it and decided to move forward and order the part for 10 boards. Then I found out that the MCU can only be delivered in 8 months !!!! -&gt; back to the drawing board and redesign with another MCU... a lot of time lost in the process. I should have checked the availability much sooner)
Next step is to do the layout. But to do so you first need to know the capabilities of the PCB manufacturing house. Check their website for things such as minimum track width, clearance distances, etc... And enter them into your routing software. If done correctly, the software will ensure that what you draw in your layout will be accepted by the PCB house.
Then you decide where you want to put each block on the PCB. Like: powers supply on the top left. I want the RJ45 for the lan at the bottom. etc...
Then do the routing.
Once done, use the &quot;design rule check&quot; function of the software to check your routing. It should check that you haven't forgot to route a net; That all the clearance complies with what the PCB house is capable to make; etc...
Then you order the parts, order the PCB, and start the software.