'Top Innovation' Domestic Drone Launched by NearsLab to Protect Citizen Safety

CES 2025 'Best Innovation Award' Interview with Choi Jae-hyuk, CEO of NearsLab
Starts Defense Export Using Self-Developed Drones
Committed to Contributing to Public Safety in Korea

To win the Best of Innovation award at CES, the world's largest electronics and IT exhibition, you have to be in the top 0.6%. At CES 2025, which recently announced its winners, over 3,400 products from around the world were submitted, but only 19 received the Best of Innovation award. Among them is the ‘Drone Station’ by NearsLab, a South Korean AI drone company. NearsLab, which had been inspecting facilities such as wind power plants with drones equipped with its self-developed AI autonomous flight software, won the CES Best of Innovation award this year with hardware unveiled for the first time. Based on this, NearsLab’s drones are now preparing to take off in new fields such as public safety and defense industries.

Choi Jae-hyuk, CEO of Nears Lab, is being interviewed by Asia Economy at the office in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

On the 21st, Choi Jae-hyuk, CEO of NearsLab, said, "The Station supports operating drones unmanned and fully automated," adding, "We developed it by considering not only the technology itself but also what value it can add to the public safety industry." The Drone Station unveiled by NearsLab this year includes not only unmanned operation but also the function to obtain flight permits, enabling drones to quickly dispatch in case of emergencies. After completing missions, the drones can automatically replace and charge their batteries, and the station has a cooling function to lower the temperature of the drone body overheated by flight. CEO Choi said, "The core technology of the Station is the automated linkage system," explaining, "For drones used for patrols, it links with police monitoring systems to dispatch when necessary." He noted that their experience linking with global energy companies’ systems for wind power plant inspections in their existing business area became a key competitive advantage in developing this Station.

Currently, two types of drones are dispatched from this Station: the multipurpose small drone ‘Aiden’ and the direct-collision high-speed drone ‘Kaiden.’ Together with the Station, these two drones form the hardware lineup that NearsLab developed and introduced for the first time this year. CEO Choi said, "Previously, we used other companies’ drones with our software installed, but to provide the best solution, we believed we needed to create our own hardware specialized for the software," adding, "Especially in the U.S., where Chinese-made parts are banned due to security issues, there has been demand for drones excluding Chinese parts in both public and private sectors."

Currently, the U.S. prohibits the use of Chinese-made parts in seven key drone components. However, CEO Choi explained that in the local defense industry supply chain, they only accept products that are not entirely made with Chinese parts. By excluding Chinese parts and manufacturing domestically, NearsLab has opened up a large market for itself.

Choi Jae-hyuk, CEO of Nears Lab, is posing with a product before an interview with Asia Economy at the office in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

The drones Aiden and Kaiden, which can be operated unmanned through the Drone Station, are optimized for different missions. Aiden is for surveillance and reconnaissance, while Kaiden is for attack and defense. CEO Choi explained that Aiden is a drone for the police, and Kaiden is for the military. NearsLab’s competitive edge lies in the fact that both drones can be made smaller and cheaper based on AI technology. NearsLab’s drones can autonomously fly using only cameras and software without expensive sensors like LiDAR. After completing both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering at KAIST, CEO Choi and CTO Jung Young-seok founded NearsLab in 2015 and have steadily conducted research and development (R&D) since then.

This aligns with the recent trends in drone usage as weapons, such as in the Ukraine war. CEO Choi said, "Future wars will minimize the number of people but will be decided by whether robots or drones can organically perform missions," adding, "To build this force, drones must be mass-produced cheaply and intelligently."

Results have begun to emerge. Exports using their own hardware have already started. CEO Choi said, "We have begun exporting to the defense industry overseas, and contracts and deliveries are underway," adding, "It will become full-scale after next year." The area where they are putting more effort is domestic. CEO Choi emphasized, "We increased reliability by winning first place in two categories at the Ministry of National Defense’s DroneBot Challenge in September and are making various proposals for building anti-drone defense systems," adding, "NearsLab has a proven system and wants to create value domestically to contribute to public safety."

Choi Jae-hyuk, CEO of NearsLab, is being interviewed by Asia Economy at the office in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun