about the founder
Dr Ciprian Zamfir founded PTLA in 2021 to give engineering teams direct access to senior systems, safety and cybersecurity expertise. He has spent around 20 years in engineering teams that take driver assistance (ADAS) and active-safety systems from first concept to series production. PTLA now applies the same methods to on-road, off-highway and industrial machines.
PTLA's work since 2021 has included:
- Cybersecurity analysis for trailers, from item definition to cybersecurity goals and requirements.
- Over-the-air update strategy and process for passenger cars, including a method for choosing which software updates to deploy.
- System requirements and architecture for motorcycle features and a driver monitoring system.
- Functional safety work products and reviews (FMEAs, functional requirements, test plans) for ADAS features on small and large commercial vehicles.
- A fail-safe mechanism for a truck ACC Stop & Go feature.
- R&D in automated driving, assisted and automated berthing, and automated requirements and cybersecurity workflows.
Career
- Continental (2005 to 2013): Supported ADAS radar sensor development from A-sample to manufacturing, and developed automated end-of-line and system-in-the-loop tests, including automated data analysis and pass/fail decisions.
- Jaguar Land Rover (2013 to 2018): As system engineer and technical team lead for active safety, worked on systems from concept to production. Introduced early design-validation methods, supported supplier selection, and helped resolve warranty issues on ADAS features.
- ZF (2018 to 2019): Developed the system architecture and requirements for a high-resolution radar, led the System FMEA and supported concept-phase ISO 26262 and ISO/SAE 21434 work.
- Ricardo (2019 to 2021): Principal engineer for connected and automated vehicles, showing how ADAS technology could be reused on off-highway vehicles and assessing the safety and security of automated fleets from highway to off-road.
- ClearMotion (2021 to 2022): Alongside early PTLA work, developed a model-based vehicle-to-cloud architecture and its requirements. Also specified the telematics control unit to support real-time data exchange between vehicle and cloud
His PhD from the Technical University of Iași, on nonlinear dynamical systems, shapes how he approaches complex system behaviour and edge cases.
