Great Power Technology

June 1st, Children’s Day.

Two weeks after the mechanical exoskeleton project was established and budgeted, the BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) Research Laboratory of Zhejiang University.

A researcher sat down in front of the screen with a face full of reluctance. Two colleagues behind him were quickly putting on the EEG headgear on him, and then turned on the controllers one by one, preparing to start the day's experiment.

"Brother Chen, why is it always me? I really don't want to be a guinea pig anymore. How about we draw lots tomorrow? Whoever gets the draw will do the experiment."

The National People's Congress man whom he calls Brother Chen is Chen Li. He has a doctorate in biology and electrical engineering. He is a rare genius in the field of BCI for a century. Of course, this technology has not exceeded 100 since its inception. Years, but no matter what, his talent is obvious to all in the country.

"Zhu, please stop struggling. Your EGG signal is the weakest in our entire laboratory. Only by using you can we achieve the best results."

"Besides, wouldn't it be easy for you to sit here all day without looking at data or calculating models, just closing your eyes and using your brain?"

The person sitting on the chair is named Zhu Xuan. He is also a PhD in computer science. He has contributed many groundbreaking convolutional neural network algorithm models to the BCI project of Zhejiang University. However, the experiment has now reached the final stage of revision and adjustment. His The work gradually decreased.

Therefore, he was naturally treated as a guinea pig. As soon as he arrived at the laboratory every day, he was immediately pressed into a chair and put on an EGG headgear to start testing their newly developed robotic arm.

It was the same today. Zhu Xuan had already started his day's testing work before he even had time to eat breakfast.

Listening to Chen Li's words, he shook his head from side to side dissatisfiedly and said:

"You are so cruel. In the past, the monkeys in the experiment were given bananas to eat when they performed the experiments correctly. What about me? I have been sitting here all morning without even giving me a drink of water."

"I really don't understand. What's the difference between me and the monkey?"

"The monkey has grown hair, but you haven't."

"What if I grow hair too?"

"Then I'll give you a banana to eat too. Okay, stop talking. The device is connected. Close your eyes. I'll put on an eye mask for you. I want to calibrate your MI signal first."

The so-called MI signal is the motor imagination brain wave signal. This signal occurs when the brain tries to command muscle groups, but the nerve pathways are blocked and cannot be transmitted. After capturing this signal through the EGG headgear, the brain will input the signal into the decoder. The decoder translates this signal into a mechanical electrical signal based on the MI translation model written by Zhu Xuan and his team, thereby commanding the movement of the robotic arm.

Zhu Xuan's arms have been firmly tied to the armrests of the chair in order to simulate the state of arm disability or loss of arms.

"Every time I sit on this chair, I always have a bad feeling. Even if I have to wear a blindfold, I always feel like a whip is going to come out in the next second."

"Come on, Xiaoya, go get the candles we prepared."

"Damn it! Are you serious?"

Zhu Xuan's arm suddenly twitched, and the whole chair jumped due to him.

Because of the restraint belt, his arm movements were not successfully executed. Instead, the mechanical arm placed aside suddenly contracted, almost grazing Chu Ya who was standing aside.

"Brother, your reaction is too great. The MI signal transmission is normal, the data strength is ok, and it is ready for testing."

"No, I'm not reacting violently. I'm afraid that you will really use candles to drip on me. I remember you said last time that you wanted to test the ability to control the robotic arm through reflected signals in an unconscious state. Isn't that what you are doing now? Son?"

Chu Ya cast a helpless look at Chen Li, and then said:

"What should we do, Brother Chen, do you still have candles?"

"Come on, why not, but you have to test the basic operations first. Come on, Zhu, there is an apple in front of you. Imagine moving your arm about twenty centimeters to the right, and then reach out to grab the apple. "

"Yes, yes, the position is right. How about it? Can you feel it?"

Zhu Xuan on the seat put away his joking expression. Under the blindfold, he had closed his eyes and entered a state of contemplation. Then, the robotic arm began to move.

The speed of the robotic arm is very fast, and its five finger joints are constantly flexing and extending, trying to grab the apple in front of it.

"Very good. You've touched it. Can you feel the current signal?"

Zhu Xuan nodded slightly and replied:

"There is a numbness in my shoulders, but it is not easy to re-establish this feeling in the brain's logical system. I simply can't realize that this electric current comes from the contact of the robotic arm on the object. It takes a big circle in my brain to get it. Fix the logic.”

"This operation is so counter-intuitive. Brother Chen, can you develop a system that converts pressure signals into tactile signals and writes them back into the brain?"

"We are working on it. This is what the deeploop project is doing now. Didn't we just get the budget to go to supercomputing? After supercomputing is completed, we can try to solve the electrical signals."

"But you should focus on electrical stimulation now. As long as you undergo special training, it is not difficult to form a conditioned reflex. Come on, you continue. Now you have three fingers touching the apple. Can you feel the current? Hold it tighter. The current frequency should speed up."

Zhu Xuan nodded and replied:

"I can feel that all five of my fingers are touching now. The five previously embedded points have electrical stimulation feedback. The feedback areas of the middle finger, thumb, and index finger have the highest frequency, which should be consistent with the force logic."

"That's no problem. Now lift the apple. Is there any reaction in the pressure stimulation area on your arm?"

"There is a reaction, but it is very stimulating and strong. This is not the weight of an apple at all, right?"

After hearing Zhu Xuan's words, Chu Ya and Chen Li looked at each other, with expressions of joy on their faces.

Of course this is not an Apple. What is currently held on the robotic arm is the spherical end of a dumbbell that Chen Li specially found from the gym.

Their purpose of doing this was purely to verify the true effect of the FMA electrical stimulation feedback system on the robotic arm.

Judging from the current results, trained users like Zhu Xuan can completely judge the objects they are grasping through electrode stimulation embedded in other sensing parts of the body without resorting to visual and tactile feedback. of the basic situation.

If after long-term training, a complete set of thinking processing logic is formed for these electrical stimulations, users can even judge the shape of objects directly through the robotic arm, which will bring about a dramatic change in their technology.

Of course, such training must be arduous, because its essence is to break the inherent thinking logic of human body control and then re-establish a new set of mechanical-based thinking logic. This is even more difficult than starting from the infant stage. difficulty.

However, for their users, this difficulty is nothing.

Thinking of this, Chen Li opened his mouth to explain:

"This is indeed not an apple, this is a dumbbell. Zhu, you learn quickly. It seems that our system is basically usable. Come on, put the dumbbell down, and we will continue to test other things."

"Brother Chen, I've been sitting on this chair for more than half a month. Can I learn quickly? Wait, what weird thing did you put in my hand?"

"Why does this weight and shape feel like it's cylindrical? The pressure between each finger is about the same. Wait, I'll touch it with another hand."

As he spoke, Zhu Xuan moved the other robotic arm, slowly approached the object he had grasped, and began to test the shape of the object with one finger.

This is an extremely counter-intuitive behavior and completely different from normal people's touch operations. What he is doing is using a pressure sensor on his finger to trace the object on his hand.

After circling the object with his fingers, Zhu Xuan had basically made a judgment in his mind.

"I know what it is."

"It's cylindrical, about ten centimeters long. I can't tell whether it's soft or hard, but it's slightly curved. First of all, excluding the weird thing that I first thought of, there's only one answer."

"banana."

"No, Brother Chen, are you really planning to let me eat bananas?!"

Chen Li nodded to him happily, and then said:

“To eat bananas, you must eat bananas, but it’s not just about eating them.”

"Here, now try to peel the banana and put it into your mouth."

"This is a bit too much, Brother Chen. The movements are too delicate and difficult."

"No matter how precise it is, we have to do it. Can we expect that there will be no fine movements in users' lives in the future? Peeling bananas is already very common. If we can't even do this well, how can our brain computers expect to change people's lives?"

"Stop talking and open your mouth!"