Manuel Wehner specializes in aviation logistics and autonomous air cargo handling at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML). In the Digital Testbed Air Cargo (DTAC), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) with €13.7 million, he oversees the development and testing of autonomous robotic systems for air cargo handling at airports.
On behalf of the DTAC consortium, he recently accepted TIACA’s ‘Sustainability Award’ in Hong Kong in June 2025 and an ‘International Award for Excellence in Air Cargo’ in Nairobi in February 2025 for the tests of a heterogeneous robot fleet at the DTAC partner airports MUC and STR in 2024.
Wehner studied Management and Technology (M.Sc.) in Munich and Mexico, as well as Aviation Management (B.A.) in Frankfurt and Saudi Arabia. He is a lecturer and co-founder of the Institute for Aviation and Tourism (IAT). As a project manager for Fraport AG, he led the test operation of autonomous minibuses at Frankfurt Airport in 2017.
