CargoCobra.ai
Singapore · Aviation · Physical AI

The only autonomous robot designed to work
inside aircraft cargo holds.

100,000 narrow-body flights take off every day. 70 to 80% of them are still loaded by hand, with workers crawling into 1.1 m holds and lifting 30 kg bags in extreme heat. CargoCobra is the first fully autonomous system designed to take that work off human shoulders. No human inside the hold. No aircraft modification.

Get in touch→ How it works
USD 18Bannual market
100Kflights / day
73%worker injury rate
20/20patent claims novel

OEM-validated · Government-backed · Singapore-built

EnterpriseSG
01 · The problem

Baggage handling hasn't changed in 70 years.

Inside the belly of every narrow-body aircraft, two humans crawl through a 1.1 to 1.3 m hold and stack bags by hand, flight after flight, in 45 degree heat. It is the highest-injury role in aviation, and the last manual bottleneck in the entire turnaround.

100K
flights every day, globally
70 to 80%
narrow-body, still loaded by hand
73%
chronic back-injury rate among ramp workers
USD 300 to 1,200
labour cost per flight turnaround

USD 18 billion annual market. 100,000 flights x 365 days x ~USD 500 average. Zero deployed automation works inside the hold without human help or aircraft modification.

02 · The solution

CargoCobra. Built for the cargo hold. Nowhere else.

Every dimension, joint and sensor designed around one constraint: fitting and working inside a B737 or A320 belly. Drops in via the existing belt loader. No retrofit, no human, no aircraft modification.

◉

AI machine vision

Real-time detection and pose estimation for every bag, soft, hard, oversized or fragile, inside the hold.

⟁

VLA model control

A vision-language-action model orchestrates the robot end to end. No brittle scripts, no per-bag teach points.

⚙

Adaptive suction gripper

Validated in the OEM POC. Handles 30 kg suitcases and tagged-fragile items with the same gentle grip.

↯

Telescopic transport

Patent-pending screw-in-screw mechanism solves the geometric constraints of narrow-body holds in 1.1 m clearance.

◇

Precision motion

Mecanum-driven omnidirectional base. Centimetre placement accuracy across the entire hold volume.

⌁

Drop-in deployment

Rolls onto the aircraft from the existing belt loader. Zero changes to ground equipment or to the aircraft itself.

03 · Team

Built by people who have actually shipped deep tech.

A small, deliberately senior team running out of our Singapore lab in Ang Mo Kio. Two principals today. More engineers joining as development progresses.

Dominik Braun

CEO & Founder

M.Eng. Mechanical Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. MBA, ESADE Business School (Entrepreneurship Scholarship). Founded Antomation in Singapore and built it from zero into the company that delivered the OEM POC, secured the patent, won the government grant and signed the strategic agreements.

Previously Director of Engineering & Manufacturing at Nagel Precision (USA): 50 engineers across mech, EE and software, full P&L responsibility for up to USD 100M annual revenue. Earlier R&D inside Daimler's hydrogen fuel-cell test programme.

  • Karlsruhe (M.Eng)
  • ESADE (MBA)
  • Ex-Nagel Precision
  • Ex-Daimler R&D

Dr Carlos Manzano

CTO Software

PhD in Surface Physics from EPFL Lausanne. 18+ years as Research Scientist and Project Manager at A*STAR IMRE Singapore, delivering technological solutions to industrial partners in aerospace and government agencies.

Deep expertise in machine vision and AI for industrial inspection: TensorFlow, YOLO, Mask R-CNN, OpenCV. 20 peer-reviewed papers. Three-time nominee for Singapore's President's Science and Technology Award. Guinness World Record holder (single-molecule gear, 2011).

  • EPFL PhD
  • A*STAR IMRE
  • Computer vision & ML
  • Singaporean

Engineering team

Growing

As the project advances, the engineering team scales out of the Ang Mo Kio lab. Roles already scoped: mechanical design, embedded electronics, ML / vision, and field integration. Singapore-based, hands-on, working alongside the full A320 cargo-hold mockup on site.

Target: 15 to 20 engineers by Q1 2027, scaling to 60+ employees within five years across an SG-MY manufacturing footprint.

  • Mech design
  • Embedded EE
  • ML & vision
  • Field integration
04 · Traction

OEM-validated. Patent-protected. Government-backed.

Sept 2025Paid POC with global aircraft OEM completed and signed off
Nov 2025Patent ISR confirms all 20 claims novel and inventive
Feb 2026SGD 400K commitment from Singapore government
June 20263-year aircraft OEM budget agreement to be signed
Q4 2026CargoCobra MVP integration begins
Q1 2027CargoCobra MVP complete
Q2 2027First commercial CargoCobra pilot
✓

No human inside hold

The robot is the only thing in the cargo bay during loading. Eliminates the injury risk entirely.

✓

No aircraft modification

Works on the existing fleet of 30,000+ narrow-bodies. No certification, no weight penalty, no retrofit programme.

✓

OEM partnership

Paid POC completed and signed off in Sept 2025. Three-year budget agreement scheduled for June 2026.

✓

Patent protected

PCT international filing. ISR confirms all 20 claims novel and inventive, across 8 distinct concepts.

05 · Contact

Talk to us about CargoCobra.

Whether you run ramp operations, lead a ground handling business, buy ground support equipment, or want to learn more about the project, reach out directly.

db@antomation.net

Looking to invest in CargoCobra?

Phase 2 financing details →