WHAT WE DO
Near Earth Autonomy is creating a future where autonomous flight is commonplace and safe. Our work enables a range of unmanned aircraft (i.e., sub-meter to full scale) to operate across multiple applications.
LEADERSHIP
Sanjiv Singh
CEO & Co-Founder
Sanjiv leads the technical and business strategy for the company. He brings 25 years of experience in autonomous ground and air vehicles operating in extreme environments. Key area of his expertise are in perception and planning for air and ground vehicles. In addition, he specializes in the coordination of teams of (human and robotic) agents performing complex tasks. Sanjiv obtained his PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in 1995 and has since been on the faculty at the Robotics Institute. Sanjiv is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Field Robotics. Near Earth is his third commercial venture.
Marcel Bergerman
COO & Co-Founder
Marcel Bergerman oversees the company's operation, including funding procurement, contracting, project management, and project retirement. Additionally, he leads the company's financial, human resources, and administrative operations. He obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 1996. Prior to joining Near Earth, he was a faculty at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute for 6 years. Mr. Bergerman is also a co-founder of MySTEM Academy, a technology education venture that teaches programming and robotics to elementary and middle school children.
Lyle Chamberlain
CTO & Co-Founder
Lyle is Lead for Flight Operations and Principal Mechanical Engineer, and a co-founder of Near Earth. He has over a decade of experience in field robotics implementation and test, with the majority of his work involving autonomous aircraft. Currently he oversees development of perception packages for full-scale vehicles, and leads the integration and test of these systems on multiple customer aircraft. Lyle graduated from Caltech in 2005 with a BS in Engineering and Applied Science, and worked for 8 years as engineering staff at the Carnegie Mellon Field Robotics Center. Away from work, Lyle participates in cross-country glider racing and aviation outreach in the community, flying his experimental-class glider in events and serving for several years as president of the Pittsburgh Soaring Club.
Sebastian Scherer
Principal Robotics Engineer & Co-Founder
Sebastian brings key technical expertise in perception and motion planning to the company. Sebastian has pushed the state of the art in intelligence for autonomous aerial vehicles in the last 10 years and has developed perception and motion planning algorithms that enable flight in unstructured and unknown environments.Currently, he leads projects in perception and planning for autonomous aircraft. Sebastian obtained his PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in 2010. He has been on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon since 2012.