Alice 5 was named one of 10 Vanguard winners, the award's highest tier, at the exhibition running Wednesday to Friday at KINTEX in Goyang, just outside Seoul.
Judges weighed technical innovation, readiness for industrial use and originality, and 15 other companies received Distinction awards.
The adult-sized biped stands 170 centimeters tall, weighs 50 kilograms and moves on 43 degrees of freedom across its head, waist, arms, hands and legs.
Quasi-direct-drive motors run its upper body and in-house linear actuators power its legs, a hybrid design the company said keeps it upright under heavy or lopsided loads.
Impedance control lets the robot absorb outside jolts, cutting the risk of collisions with workers, and handle objects as fragile as eggs and glass.
Its modular hands can be swapped for tasks from moving parts to assembly, and an Nvidia Jetson Thor module handles AI computing on the robot itself.
"It is gratifying to receive such a major award under difficult circumstances, but watching the runaway dominance of Chinese humanoids these days weighs heavily on us," an Aei Robot official said.
The official pointed out that South Korea has the world's highest industrial robot density, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
"If we are to keep the initiative in physical AI without depending on foreign technology, now is the golden time to protect and foster domestic humanoid technology through policy," the official said.
Aei Robot was co-founded in 2018 by CEO Eum Youn-seal and Han Jae-kwon, a Hanyang University robotics professor who serves as chief technology officer.
Han told AJP in February that a humanoid is worth only the work it takes off human hands.
"It's not about the kung fu or the backflips," he said.
AJP Takeaways
- Aei Robot's Alice 5 humanoid was named a Vanguard winner, the top tier of the Robot World 2026 awards, held Nov. 4-7, 2026, at KINTEX in Goyang, South Korea.
- Alice 5 stands 170 centimeters tall, weighs 50 kilograms and has 43 degrees of freedom. It uses quasi-direct-drive motors in the upper body and Aei Robot's own linear actuators in the legs.
- Aei Robot said Chinese products hold more than 95 percent of the global humanoid market and called for policy support for Korean humanoid technology.
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