AeiROBOT takes its ALICE biped humanoids into defence as DAPA picks it for the fifth Defence Innovation Company cohort

AeiROBOT, the Ansan humanoid start-up spun out of Hanyang University ERICA in 2018, has been selected for the fifth cohort of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration's Defence Innovation Company programme, according to a report by Engineering Journal (공학저널) on Oct 6 that the company reposted on its own newsroom the same day.

The report says the selection brings up to KRW 5 billion in dedicated development and commercialisation funding, military trial operation, links to trial use of commercial products, bonus points in defence bids and export support; MEKAWIRE could not find the DAPA announcement, so the amount is unconfirmed.

AeiROBOT pitched its full in-house stack, from actuators it designs and builds to mechanism design, whole-body control and on-device AI, which the report says avoids reliance on foreign platforms.

Its ALICE 5 biped, which won the Best Custom Humanoid award at RoboCup 2026 in Incheon in July, uses a 3-DoF waist, a four-bar linkage and linear actuators, and the company is working on heavy-load carrying, rough-terrain patrol and on-device vision AI for disconnected operation.

Separately, Digital Today reported on Sept 30, in an article also reposted by the company, that AeiROBOT signed an investment agreement with the Gyeonggi Free Economic Zone Authority, Hanyang University and Ansan City for an integrated R&D and manufacturing building in Ansan Science Valley, the first large corporate investment since the zone was designated, to move toward volume production with parts sourced from the Sihwa and Banwol industrial complexes.

CEO Eom Yoon-seol said bipeds can use human-centred military infrastructure without modification. In MEKAWIRE's database AeiROBOT has no disclosed funding round yet, which makes the DAPA grant, if confirmed at the reported ceiling, one of its largest known non-dilutive sources.