Punarjay Chakravarty

Founder-CEO @ Constellation Aerospace

About

Building the foundations for Orbital AI at Constellation Aerospace.Previously - as Staff Engineer at Planet Labs, I applied my CV/ML expertise in developing real-time insights for Earth observation satellites. I have a PhD in robotics from Monash University, Australia, where I specialized in collaborative surveillance between fixed cameras and a mobile robot.Prior to joining Planet, I was a Machine Learning and Robotics technical expert for the Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, where I led a team that worked on perception for AVs. I filed 65 patents and my team showed that Ford vehicles could be completely autonomous in large parking garages with no modification.I worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at KU Leuven, Belgium, where I contributed to the Cametron project, using drones/UAVs for autonomous film-making. My research has resulted in 50+ peer-reviewed papers in top computer vision and robotics conferences, with over 3500 citations.Find out more at: https://jaychakravarty.com/

Country

United States

City

San Francisco Bay Area

Industry

Information Technology & Services

Skill

Remote Sensing, Edge Compute, Computer Vision, Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Algorithms, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, Image Processing, Signal Processing, OpenCV, Matlab, C, C++, Python, Embedded Systems, LaTeX, Arduino, 3DPrinting, Linux

Experience

Founder-CEO

Constellation Aerospace

2026-4 - Present · 6 mos

Bangalore Urban

Constellation Aerospace is building the next-gen of AI compute, in space.

Chief Executive Officer

Rainier Labs

2025-10 - Present · 1 yr

San Francisco Bay Area

Founder-CEO at Rainier Labs.

Staff Edge ML Engineer

Planet

2023-1 - 2025-7 · 2 yrs 7 mos

San Francisco Bay Area

Led team and solution that put object detection and geolocation/rectification on the satellite, for real-time insights from space.

Technical Expert, Machine Learning and Robotics.

Ford Motor Company

2017-6 - 2023-1 · 5 yrs 8 mos

Palo Alto, California.

• Led the Autonomous Vehicle Perception team at Ford's Silicon Valley lab, focusing on innovative solutions for vehicle autonomy. • Developed systems that enabled regular Ford vehicles to achieve full autonomy with minimal modifications. • Filed 55 patents, contributing to the advancement of autonomous technology and ensuring safety with zero crashes.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

KU Leuven

2013-10 - 2017-4 · 3 yrs 7 mos

Belgium

• Developed a pioneering vision-only CNN-based autonomous drone system, contributing to advancements in robotics. • Published research at leading conferences and journals in Computer Vision and Machine Learning. • Supervised and mentored multiple Masters and PhD students, fostering the next generation of researchers.

Research Engineer

sensen.ai

2012-3 - 2013-9 · 1 yr 7 mos

The project that I led at SenSen Networks was a mobile parking enforcement system that uses cameras mounted on an enforcement vehicle to automatically detect parking overstay. This is a product that is now selling around the world. Here is a video of the system in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Y_933ZP4g In addition to R&D at SenSen, I have worked on tender responses, product development, system engineering, system maintenance, marketing and customer management. In 2012, I spent 2 months at Abu Dhabi Airport, helping set up the world's largest network of intelligent video surveillance: 400 cameras doing face recognition, people counting, overcrowding detection, left luggage detection and more.

Researcher

NICTA

2010-12 - 2012-3 · 1 yr 4 mos

Research Engineer, Systems Engineer

Researcher

Sensen Networks

2007-12 - 2011-2 · 3 yrs 3 mos

I worked as an algorithm developer for SenSen Networks, a company which specializes in using computer vision for intelligent video surveillance. More information about the company can be found at: http://www.sensennetworks.com/