1997 Stefan Pielmeier then joined Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland GmbH in Nürnberg where he developed embedded software for the first generation mobile network 3G base stations in an international cooperation with sites in whole Europe. He was made system architect and strongly supported the requirements analysis and verification tool chain development of the first huge ASICs on the transmitter cards.
In 2003, the european silicon valley called Stefan to Villeneuve-Loubet at the french Cote d’Azur to be project leader for a mobile telecom 2.5G chipset at Texas Instruments, introducing for the first time formal estimation methods and KPI’s to measure maturity in embedded development in that environment.
The transfer to Denmark in 2005 allowed him to introduce new automatic “continuous integration” build and test tools to speed up 3G protocol stack development by eliminating manual testing. Helping others to focus on the important task had earned him 2 Texas Instruments awards.
In 2007 Stefan Pielmeier changed to Telenor Denmark, to take technical responsibility for quality and feature upgrades to the mobile data core network components and their preparation towards the new mobile 4G standard, capturing requirements, coordinating the technical teams and creating budgets.
Between 2010-2018, he managed the software development of the maritime radio and navigation product portfolio for Thrane & Thrane A/S in Aalborg, known as the SAILOR Radios. Leading technology development and developing the team members went hand-in-hand to get most out of the up to 14 developers under Stefan’s control. 10 new high-quality SAILOR products were developed during that time. Two Sir Alain Cobham Awards were awarded to Stefan and his team for his technical and management contributions during that time.
Since 2014, Stefan is actively participating in the standardisation of the new maritime digital communication standard VHF Data Exchange (VDES) and since April 2019 he is chairman for the IALA DTEC (former eNav) communications working group, the group that maintains the Automatic Identification System AIS and VDES standards.
In 2019 and 2020, he helped Bang & Olufsen automising their audio quality testing , saving time and money by applying DSP techniques on off-the shelf USB sound-cards with Raspberry Pi and Pytest.
Between July 2019 and August 2024, Stefan was CTO for the first commercial danish satellite network operator Sternula, delivering the VDE-SAT service to the maritime community, founded by business partner Lars Moltsen and himself. Leading the 3.5 Million Euro Grand Solution Project Mariot for Innovation Fund Denmark, to build, test and operate the novel scalable VDE-SAT communication system in real life. He was leading 2 ESA and other EU development projects, creating knowledge for the company and the space community around VDES.
Stefan became chairman of the VDES-Alliance in 2022 and of Special Committe 139 of RTCM in May 2023, and still keeps the chairmanship of the IALA DTEC communications working group.
Since September 2024, Stefan is again for Albatros-Tech consulting Sternula and AIVeNautics and open for other clients.
Albatros-Tech delivers services in VDES and MMS consulting and standardisation with the goal to help companies and authorities to create successful VDES and MMS setups. He helps with formulating requirements in tenders, writes parts of standards, advices on network and satellite architectures that are compatible with the recommendations by IALA, ITU, IMO and RTCM, and can fulfil the equipment standards from IEC, ISO and NMEA on the topics of digital maritime communications equipment.
Stefan Pielmeier is in general passionate about delivering simple and robust solutions fulfilling their mission under real conditions, leaving as much as possible freedom to implementing experts in the industry.