Prof. Jian S. Dai

Chair in Mechanisms and Robotics

RAE Fellow (FREng), IEEE Fellow, ASME Fellow, RSA Fellow, IMechE Fellow, CEng

Chair of IFToMM (International Federation of Mechanisms and Machines) UK Board

Editor-in-Chief of Robotica (Est. 1983)

Subject Editor of Mechanism and Machine Theory

Associate Editor of Transactions of ASME: Journal of Mechanical Design

Associate Editor of Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science

Past Chair of ASME UK & Ireland Section

2020 ASME Machine Design Award (The highest society level technical award in design engineering. It recognizes “eminent achievement and distinguished service in the field of machine design”). Citation:"For pioneering contributions in establishing the field of reconfigurable mechanisms and the subfield of metamorphic mechanisms; and for making a lasting impact through research, industrial applications, teaching and service that have made it possible to bridge the gap between versatile but expensive and efficient but nonflexible machines."

2015 DED Mechanisms and Robotics Award (The honor is given to engineers known for a lifelong contributions to the fundamental theory, design and applications of mechanisms and robotic systems). Citation:"Professor Dai has made a lasting impact on reconfigurable mechanisms through his contributions to theoretical study, mechanism innovation, industrial applications, and societal services and by exploring the screw system relationship for revealing constraint variation that affects mechanisms reconfigurability and for establishing a mode of mobility analysis."

Professor Dai is an international leading figure in the field of theoretical kinematics particularly in screw theory from his study of finite twists during 1993 and 1995 with continuing publications on screw systems and screw algebra between 2001 and 2006 and between 2012 and 2015 and with creating the screw-system approach for mechanism analysis and synthesis. He is a creator of many original works with reconfigurable and dexterous packaging since 1996, metamorphic mechanisms since 1998, origami mechanisms since 1999, ankle rehabilitation mechanisms since 1999, and metamorphic parallel mechanisms since 2009. Much of his work is original and inspirational, making many impressive contributions to the field of mechanism theory and mechanical design.

Professor Dai received BEng in 1982 and MSc in 1984 from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the PhD in Kinematics and Robotics from University of Salford in the UK in 1993. He has since taken the post doctoral study and between 1996 and 1997, was working on reconfigurable and dexterous manipulation of origami-cartons at Unilever Research. He was then taking Senior Lecturer position at University of Sunderland and joined King’s College London in 1999. He was promoted to Reader in mechanisms and robotics in 2004 and to Professor in mechanisms and robotics in 2007. Since then, he continues to lead research in the field of mechanisms and robotics with many innovative and leading works in computational and theoretical kinematics, screw theory, metamorphic mechanisms and reconfigurable mechanisms, reconfigurable robotics, with various robot developments including Origami robots, healthcare robots, domestic robots, industrial robots, and terrestrial robots.

Professor Dai is the 58th recipient since 1958 of the ASME Machine Desgin Award as the Society level top award recognizing eminent achievement or distinguished service in the field of machie design and is the 27th recipient since 1974 of the Mechanisms and Robotics Award(see previous winners on ASME website) which is an honor given by the ASME Design Engineering Division to engineers known for a lifelong contribution to the fundamental theory, design and applications of mechanisms and robotic systems. He is also a recipient of several conference and journal best paper awards, ASME/IEEE outstanding service awards, King’s College London Overall Supervisory Excesllence Award, Mechanisms Innovation Award from Chinese mechanisms committee. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, ASME and IMechE, and has contributed over 500 publications, including three books.