Great Power Technology

(The previous chapter was 260, I typed it wrong again)

Early the next morning, Ye Zhou followed Chen Hao to an army base near Rongcheng. There, Ye Zhou finally saw the domestic mechanical exoskeleton that he had always been curious about.

According to the plan that Chen Hao communicated with the military in advance, the visit was divided into two parts. The first part was for professional soldiers to mount the exoskeleton to demonstrate tactical actions, and the second part was for Ye Zhou to try it out in person.

Various types of equipment have already been arranged on the shooting range, including combat vehicles, artificial obstacles, artillery shells, dummy casualties, etc., all of which will be used as props to later demonstrate the performance of the mechanical exoskeleton.

The soldiers participating in the demonstration have been assembled. Ye Zhou and Chen Hao were standing aside, accompanied by several military cadres. They were briefly introducing the content of the subsequent demonstration to Ye Zhou before the demonstration began.

"Mr. Ye, the following demonstrations mainly have several parts. We divide them according to the functions of the arms. Now they mainly fall into the categories of infantry, artillery, logistics, and medical corps. Among them, the artillery is the most important one. The others are The use of mechanical exoskeletons by our military branches is not yet particularly perfect, and some tactical actions cannot be adapted, especially high-intensity tactical actions such as climbing, jumping, etc., which have relatively large limitations."

Ye Zhou nodded. He had already expected this situation, so he couldn't say he was disappointed.

Today's mechanical exoskeletons generally use two systems. The first system can simply be called the load-bearing system, that is, the deceleration system. Its principle is to use a hybrid transmission chain technology of a gear reducer and a synchronous wheel reduction belt, combined with Real-time force feedback disassembles the force at a single position through servos scattered at different positions of the mechanical skeleton and transmits it to other parts of the body or directly to the soles of the feet.

The other system is the motion system, which is based on series elastic drive. After the force impedance control system calculates the joint force feedback, it drives the high-torque DC motor to store the torsional energy of the elastic device inside the machine - generally speaking, the spring. , and then use the spring energy to realize the accelerated motion of the joint. The final result is to achieve labor saving and acceleration during ordinary movement.

Simply put, the weight-bearing system allows users to lift heavier objects, while the motion system allows users to jump higher and run faster.

But the problem is that the complexity of the motion system is much more complicated than that of the weight-bearing system, especially in terms of the speed of re-storage of energy. Even the direct drive drive with the highest power density, which is several times more than the muscle density, has a reaction speed. It is also slightly slower than the muscles, so this results in a slight lag that the user of the exoskeleton will experience when making fast movements.

If you want to describe this sense of lag, the best example is the three-person-one-board activity that most people have played at the school’s Children’s Day event. Everyone’s feet are fixed on the longboard at the same time, and there is no movement in the movement. Before synchronization is achieved, the sluggish feeling felt by the person who started it first is the sluggish feeling of the current mechanical exoskeleton.

However, theoretically speaking, this delay can also be overcome through training - this again involves the two sets of muscle memory issues that Ye Zhou mentioned before.

Just as his thoughts were wandering, the drill on the shooting range not far away had begun. Ye Zhou regained his thoughts and began to watch the drill seriously.

The first person to appear was the artilleryman. A not-so-tall soldier walked up to the ammunition box and firmly held the edge of the ammunition box with his hands. Then with a little force, the ammunition box, which was more than one meter long, was easily lifted.

"This is the ammunition box of the D30 122mm howitzer. It contains 3 rounds and the weight of the ammunition is 22 kilograms. This means that it can lift nearly 70 kilograms of objects at a time without any pressure. And Mr. Ye, look at it, with the previous generation of machinery Different exoskeletons, this exoskeleton has greatly improved flexibility and work error rate.”

"The main reason is that the speed of human-computer interaction has become faster - because we installed stronger motors."

Ye Zhou nodded. He could see the movements of the artillerymen on the shooting range. Just as the expert beside him said, compared to the clumsy and slow exoskeleton device he had seen on the news, this time he What I saw was obviously much stronger.

At least, when the artilleryman performed his complete set of actions, no part of it was particularly mechanical, and the overall look even gave Ye Zhou a sense of smoothness.

The artillery shell was loaded into the chamber, but the soldiers did not fire it on the spot. Instead, they continued to demonstrate other operations such as dispatching plows, manpower towing the artillery, and rapid transfer of the artillery in an emergency.

From these operations, Ye Zhou could clearly feel that the power of a single soldier was amplified a lot, and some actions that were originally impossible became easy in their hands.

Later, the logistics and medical soldiers' displays were similar. However, Ye Zhou's eyes lit up because of the fast horizontal stretcher on the medical soldier's back. It stretched out like the express box on the back of the courier in Death Stranding. The locking mechanism of each part automatically fixes the wounded person's body, freeing up the hands of the medical soldiers, and the outer wall also assumes part of the protective role.

However, other than that, Ye Zhou really didn't see any new highlights.

After the demonstrations of these three arms were completed, Ye Zhou's long-awaited demonstration of infantry combatants finally began. The soldiers on the shooting range were seen carrying modified exoskeletons and carrying an unknown model of a single weapon on their backs. A recoilless rifle, a vanguard-12 individual air defense missile, a 95 light machine gun, an OTS-11 integrated system rifle in his hand, and various ammunition and other explosive equipment hanging on his chest. The whole thing is Fire monster!

The slightly bloated soldiers ran between various shooting positions on the shooting range, testing their weapons one by one, and the targets set in the distance were blown to pieces.

Seeing this scene, Ye Zhou couldn't help but sigh.

I haven’t paid attention to the development of the Army in the past few years. I didn’t expect that their fear of insufficient firepower has developed to this extent.

There are 4 types of weapons, targeting medium armored ground targets, helicopters, cluster infantry, and conventional infantry. Each weapon can play a vital role.

Especially the recoilless rifle that looks a bit like Gustav, which is not light at first glance. It is really hard to imagine how Rabbit can equip such a thing to the level of an individual soldier.

After all the demonstrations were over, Ye Zhou basically understood the shortcomings of the current exoskeleton.

As he thought, delay is still the biggest problem. When the infantry is fully loaded, their whole body weight exceeds 60 kilograms. The weight-bearing system and the movement system must work simultaneously, which brings huge collaborative pressure.

Therefore, this soldier often appears extremely cumbersome when performing fine movements such as lying down, crawling, climbing, and jumping.

After frowning and thinking for a while, Ye Zhou asked:

"Why cram so many weapons into one soldier?"

The commander next to him was stunned on the spot.

Why?

This seemed to be a question that touched his soul. He had many reasons, but he couldn't tell them at the moment.

After pondering for a few seconds, he spoke:

"Mr. Ye, our thinking is this. From the perspective of the development direction of modern warfare, the combat distance has been in the process of being continuously widened. From the queuing to shoot in the 17th century to the 300 to 500 meters combat in the 19th century, it has been developing. Up to now, the engagement range of light infantry has tended to develop beyond visual range."

“So, based on this trend, coupled with the increase in mechanization, we generally believe that it is no longer meaningful to pursue the high mobility and concealment of individual infantry combat units. The most important thing is the ability of individual soldiers to deliver firepower. "

"We need to make a soldier capable of fighting both tanks and aircraft to form a fully functional combat unit."

"To form such a combat unit, the number of weapons a soldier can carry is very important. As you can see, the final result is this."

"is that useful?"

Ye Zhou asked curiously.

"Judging from the exercises we conducted some time ago, to be honest, it is too useful. After achieving sufficient firepower advantage, a light infantry platoon, coupled with reasonable command, can completely pose a major threat to the traditional mechanized infantry company. We even There was an example of one squad destroying four enemy tanks and two helicopters."

"That exaggerated?"

Ye Zhou's eyes widened. It was not that he had no knowledge of military affairs, and he also knew the importance of firepower in light infantry combat. However, he did not expect that the results of firepower superiority would be exaggerated to this extent.

The commander nodded and replied:

"It's an exaggeration - of course, the cost of individual soldiers is also very high. Basically, two or three soldiers are equivalent to a multi-purpose vehicle. However, we actually don't care about the cost so much now, because no matter how expensive the weapons and equipment are, they are all fine. It’s mass-produced, but if personnel are lost, there’s really no way to replace them.”

"That's true. Okay, I'm going to try your exoskeleton first."

"It has been prepared for you a long time ago."

As he spoke, the commander took Ye Zhou to the edge of the shooting range. In order to allow him to fully experience the entire process, he did not arrange for other personnel to assist, but asked Ye Zhou to put on the mechanical exoskeleton himself.

During this process, Ye Zhou encountered no difficulties at all. He found that the exoskeleton was much better in terms of human factors engineering than he had imagined. The degree of freedom of each joint had reached an extremely fine level, and the ankle was the most difficult to control. And the wrist is also made with full freedom.

This makes the entire wearing process extremely smooth. Coupled with the control of the intelligent system, each part can be automatically locked and adapted after confirmation. From the beginning of wearing to the end of preparation, the total time spent does not exceed 5 minutes.

The weapon mounting aspect is also extremely user-friendly. The movable bracket behind the back is controlled by the console on the inside of the arm. Press the corresponding mechanical button, and the rack behind the back will automatically unfold and be moved to a position where it can be removed.

Ye Zhou tried the operation a few times, started running back and forth on the shooting range, and even tried a few jumping movements. Then he found that it was not that simple to adapt to this set of operation logic.

For example, according to intuitive operation, a jump only requires bending the legs and unfolding them. However, under heavy load, this exoskeleton also has an additional energy storage process, which also leads to a fatal problem:

He couldn't jump while running.

This alone has severely limited the diversity of tactical actions.

After using it for a circle, Ye Zhou basically summarized the problems of this mecha.

The action delay is long, the energy storage process is long, and the flexibility is still insufficient.

Therefore, this is the real reason why "you can't walk after removing the exoskeleton", not the "difference in action force feedback" that Chen Hao previously judged.

Ye Zhou walked back to the edge of the shooting range, and while removing his exoskeleton, he said to Chen Hao who was waiting aside:

"Today I have verified a great man's saying: without investigation, there is no right to speak."

"What do you mean?"

"You will know after you come here and put it on for a while. The fundamental reason for this exoskeleton is not the power-assist system, but the force feedback system."

"From force feedback to power assist, we are currently using pure physical conduction, just like playing three people on a board. The people behind you must first feel the force of your leg lift before they can lift their leg simultaneously."

"The longer the delay in this process, the greater the difference between the operation logic and the movement logic under normal conditions. The final result is that if the armor is removed, you will no longer be able to walk."

Hearing Ye Zhou's words, the commander on the side nodded repeatedly.

"Yes, that's right! That's the problem! Our soldiers mainly reported on this issue."

There was a look of surprise on his face. Although he didn't know the origin of the young man named Ye Zhou who came today, judging from his performance, he was most likely a big shot in the field of exoskeletons, specially sent to solve the problem. of.

Thinking of this, he immediately asked:

"Mr. Ye, is there a way to solve this problem?"

Ye Zhou pondered for a moment and then answered:

"I'm really not a professional in this field, so I can't give much advice on specific technical details. However, I think we can start from two directions."

"The first one is to take the artificial intelligence route, record the user's exercise habits through the central processor, and make a model of the movement status of a single muscle and muscle group. Through continuous data collection and machine learning, it is finally achieved by artificial intelligence based on The movement of the front muscle groups anticipates the user’s next move.”

"This logic is equivalent to what is said in martial arts. Don't look at the hands when watching a person's moves, but look at the shoulders. The principle is the same."

"However, the technical level required for this kind of artificial intelligence is too high, and I estimate that it will be difficult to achieve in the short term."

"So, I have an idea. Although it seems very fantasy, it has been basically implemented and is said to be a good idea."

"you say!"

The commander stared at Ye Zhou closely, as if he was afraid that he would run away.

Ye Zhou coughed and said:

"Build a neural control system, skip force feedback directly, and use neural electrical signals to synchronously control the mechanical exoskeleton."