Dikai Liu is a distinguished professor in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering and Director of the Robotics Institute (UTS:RI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. His current research interest is robotics, an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science. His fundamental robotics research focuses on perception, motion planning, physical human-robot collaboration, multi-robot systems, bio-inspired robotics, design methodology and robotic systems.

He initiated and developed the research themes of infrastructure robotics, robot teams and physical human-robot collaboration in UTS:RI. Besides conducting fundamental robotics research, he has been also leading the development of autonomous and assistive robots that can be deployed in real applications, including autonomous robots for steel bridge maintenance, bio-inspired climbing robots for inspection of complex steel structures, intelligent robotic co-worker for human-robot collaborative abrasive blasting, smart hoist for patient transfer, and autonomous underwater robots for underwater structure maintenance. Dikai is a recipient of many patents include USA and Australia patents.

Since 2006, Dikai’s research has received three best paper awards from international conferences, 14 research/engineering excellence awards and one High Commendation, including the 2019 UTS Medal for Research Impact, the 2019 ASME DED Leonardo da Vinci Award (USA), the 2019 BHERT Award for Outstanding Collaboration in Research & Development, the 2016 Australian Engineering Excellence Award (AEEA – category: Engineering Innovation Excellence Award), the 2015 Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Award (category: Industry Application), and the 2015 SafeWork NSW Award for the best solution to an identified workplace health and safety issue. He was a finalist in four international and local awards, including one of the three finalists in the 2013 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Innovative Use of Technology, one of three finalists of the 2013 IEEE/International Federation of Robotics (IFR) Invention & Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA) Award, and a finalist of the 2013 AEEA award.

Dikai’s research has generated significant impact through research translation to practical industry applications. Examples include the autonomous abrasive-blasting robots commercialised by SABRE Autonomous Solutions, the bio-inspired autonomous climbing robot deployed for confined space inspection, the autonomous underwater robot deployed for underwater bridge/wharf pile cleaning and inspection, and multi-robot coordination algorithms for container handling in automated container terminals.

Two of Dikai’s research projects were nominated for the inaugural ARC (Australian Research Council) Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA) in 2018: (1) the autonomous abrasive-blasting robot research nominated for the 09-Engineering discipline, and rated ‘High’ (top ranking, “high” impact beyond academia) in all three areas, i.e. Impact, Engagement and Approach to Impact; and (2) the research on multi-robot systems for automated container handling nominated for the 08- Information & Computing Sciences discipline, and rated “High” for Engagement, ‘Medium for Impact and “Medium” for Approach to Impact

Dikai has successfully won 10 ARC grants, 11 contract research projects, two IRT foundation grants, one Enterprise Connect grant and two UTS Partnership grants. The external research funding he received, as the first named Chief Investigator, is about $10 million

Dikai’s research has been reported by numerous newspapers, TV news and media reports, including BBC News, ABC News, SBS News, TVBS (Taiwan), Sydney Morning Herald, The Robot Report, etc.