Tonbo Imaging designs, builds and deploys advanced imaging and sensor systems to sense, understand and control complex environments. Modern day battlefields, critical infrastructures, unmanned reconnaissance, transport vehicles driving in the dark – all offer very challenging environments for effective visualization. Obscurants like smoke, dust, fog and camouflage make observation and navigation very difficult. Tonbo Imaging offers a suite of solutions that address critical market needs in military reconnaissance, critical infrastructure security and transportation safety.The company’s offerings consist of sophisticated imaging products, custom design applications and intellectual property cores that can be licensed by OEM’s and systems integrators.
About
Background
Tonbo Imaging leverages innovative designs in micro-optics, lower power electronics and real-time vision processing to design imaging systems for real world applications. Traditional systems across different imaging spectrums have relied on a single aperture principle with the burden of image formation placed excessively on the optics. Tonbo’s technology balances front end analog processing with sophisticated digital image processing to support the realization of light weight, low power imaging platforms across visible, mid wave IR and long wave IR spectrums.
Experience
Tonbo Imaging is a spinout of Sarnoff Corporation and Stanford Research International. The team has rich experience on a range of battlefield modernization technologies, immersive surveillance and strategic electronics for military applications. The company principals and management have global experience being principal investigators for defense and aerospace programs.
Meet our Team
Arvind Lakshmikumar, the founder and CEO of Tonbo Imaging, is a renowned expert in applied imaging technologies, computer vision, robotics, and intelligent systems. His distinguished career includes pivotal roles as a principal investigator and program director for various international military and scientific initiatives, including projects with DARPA, NASA, the US Army, AFRL, NSF, and DRDO, focusing on vision and imaging technologies. Arvind’s contribution to the field extends to his active involvement in program committees for major computer vision and robotics conferences. In addition to leading several next-generation military programs, Arvind’s academic credentials are equally impressive. He completed his doctoral studies in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and holds multiple Masters Degrees in Computer Science, Electronics, and Chemistry from BITS, Pilani. This diverse educational background has provided him with a unique perspective in leading Tonbo Imaging. Before establishing Tonbo Imaging, Arvind garnered substantial leadership experience both at entrepreneurial and global corporation levels Prior to founding Tonbo Imaging, Arvind was the head of technology and operations at Sarnoff Corporation.
Arvind Lakshmikumar
Ankit Kumar is the Co-founder, Chief Revenue and Business Officer at Tonbo Imaging, where he combines his deep technical expertise in optics, imaging, and vision systems with strategic business acumen. During his career spanning two decades, Ankit has smoothly evolved from a technical specialist into a leader focused on driving business expansion and increasing revenue growth. Ankit excels in maximizing revenue, identifying new business opportunities, and aligning Tonbo’s innovative technologies with market needs. His role is pivotal in cultivating relationships with key clients in defense sectors With a background in Computer Science, specializing in Computer Vision, Ankit’s technical foundation is instrumental in understanding market intricacies and envisioning solutions that cater to diverse needs. Ankit is integral to Tonbo Imaging’s strategic direction, focusing on sustainable growth and market leadership in the imaging technology sector.
Ankit Kumar
Cecilia D’Souza is the Chief Revenue officer and a co-founder of Tonbo Imaging. She has vast experience in finance, accounting and management of multi-location international businesses. Her expertise spans international accounting, M&A, procurement and operational logistics. Prior to Tonbo, she was a financial controller at Sarnoff and was responsible for managing finance for Sarnoff’s international operations. Cecilia is a qualified chartered accountant and has over 15 years experience managing finance and accounts for large corporations and consulting businesses.
Cecilia D'Souza
Prasanth Allada, as the Chief Technology Officer at Tonbo Imaging, boasts an extensive tenure of 15 years with the company, demonstrating his steadfast commitment and profound influence on its growth. Equipped with a B.Tech and an MBA from the eminent Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, Prasanth blends technical acumen with strategic business insight. His expertise covers a broad spectrum, including optical designs, system architecture, product design and validation, as well as managing administrative, logistic, and sales operations across both domestic and international markets. Prasanth’s long-standing association with Tonbo Imaging has seen him contribute significantly to nearly every major function of the company. His exceptional skills in customer interaction, crafting commercial strategies, and adept program management have consistently elevated the company’s standards and have been key in shaping its success.
Prasanth Allada
Sivashankar (Siva) has over 3 decades of experience in Financial Services. Prior to joining Tonbo as CFO, he was an Operating Partner at Arpwood Capital (2021-22), Managing Director, Private Equity, Rohatyn group ( 2013-2020) and was earlier with Citibank from 1991 to 2013 in a variety of roles across Private Equity, Capital markets, Corporate Finance and Treasury. He has led investments across Financial Services / Renewable Energy / Telecom / Infrastructure and has served on corporate boards of Sharekhan, Leapgreen Energy, Jana Small Finance Bank, You Broadband, Pharmarack and SPML Infra. He was also an Advisor to the Tonbo Imaging Board from 2017 to 2023. Siva received a B Tech in Electronics Engineering from IIT Madras in 1988 and a MBA from IIM Lucknow in 1991.
Sivashankar
Munjal Chheda
Meet our Board
Arvind Lakshmikumar
Ankit Kumar
Cecilia D'Souza
Amit Shah
Sai ram
Meet our Advisory Board
Takeo Kanade is the U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics and the director of Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from Kyoto University, Japan, in 1974.
After holding a faculty position in the Department of Information Science, Kyoto University, he joined Carnegie Mellon University in 1980. He was the Director of the Robotics Institute from 1992 to 2001. He also founded the Digital Human Research Center in Tokyo and served as the founding director from 2001 to 2010.
Dr. Kanade works in multiple areas of robotics: computer vision, multi-media, manipulators, autonomous mobile robots, medical robotics and sensors. He has written more than 400 technical papers and reports in these areas, and holds more than 20 patents. He has been the principal investigator of more than a dozen major vision and robotics projects at Carnegie Mellon.
Dr. Kanade has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ACM, a Founding Fellow of American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the former and founding editor of International Journal of Computer Vision.
Awards he received includes the Franklin Institute Bower Prize, ACM/AAAI Newell Award, Okawa Award, C&C Award, Tateishi Grand Prize, Joseph Engelberger Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Pioneer Award, FIT Accomplishment Award, and IEEE PAMI-TC Azriel Rosenfeld Lifetime Accomplishment Award.
Takeo Kanade
Dr. David Brady is the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Endowed Professor of Photonics at Duke University, where he leads the Duke Imaging and Spectroscopy Program. Brady’s contributions to computational imaging system development include lensless white light imaging, optical projection tomography, compressive holography, reference structure tomography, coded aperture snapshot spectral imaging and coded aperture x-ray scatter imaging.
He is currently the principal investigator for the DARPA AWARE Wide Field of View project, which aims to build compact streaming gigapixel scale imagers and the DARPA Knowledge Enhanced Exapixel Photography project, which focuses on code design for high pixel count spectral imagers. He is the author of Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy (Wiley-OSA, 2009) and is a Fellow of IEEE, SPIE and OSA.
David received his PhD. and Masters degrees from California Institute of Technology.
David Brady
Dr. Thomas M. Strat is a world-renowned leader in image understanding research and the founder of ObjectVideo and SET Corp.Dr. Strat served as the Assistant Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office, where he was responsible for DARPA’s Sensor Exploitation programs. During that time he oversaw the progress of technology-rich programs that spanned research, systems engineering, and integration elements.
He has served as Program Manager of the DARPA Image Understanding Program, which has been characterized as the world’s premiere computer vision research community. During that tenure, he initiated the DARPA Airborne Video Surveillance Program, and also was the originator of the Bosnian Cantonment Area Monitoring System (BCAMS), which is currently in operational use in Europe. Previously, Dr. Strat spent 15 years as a research scientist and project leader at the SRI Artificial Intelligence Center, where he designed and implemented computer vision and evidential reasoning systems.
Tom received the B.S., M.S., and E.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from M.I.T., and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and has authored or edited numerous books on computer vision.
