What Seems to Be the Problem?

Zhang Yuan opened his tablet and began studying in earnest.

After studying mathematics for so long, perhaps he could work on his father's paper, add some of his own ideas, and turn it into a paper of his own.

The full-body motion-mapping robot was meant to do this: when a person made a movement, the robot would perform an almost identical one, much like the mechanical arm Ye Kaifu had just demonstrated.

Don't underestimate this function. It was the foundation and prerequisite for a "powered exoskeleton"!

Powered exoskeletons, also known as powered armor, were currently a major research focus.

They weren't just weapons of war. They could also be used for civilian purposes, such as directly replacing spacesuits.

Thanks to the rapid development of nanomaterials, spacesuits were becoming simpler and lighter. But one thing was unavoidable: no matter what, a spacesuit had to carry a huge oxygen tank, as well as a great deal of life-support and communications equipment.

Space was dangerous. Whether it was a leak or a loss of temperature control, any mistake could cost someone their life. All that life-support equipment had to be carried; none of it could be left behind.

So scientists had proposed simply using the even bulkier "powered armor" in place of spacesuits. With powered armor, you could carry as much equipment as you wanted without worrying, and it was safer and more reliable. Even if the thick armor was struck by a piece of fast-moving space debris, it wouldn't be a big deal.

Besides replacing spacesuits, powered armor could be linked to a human operator through VR equipment and sent to carry out dangerous, difficult tasks in their place. The operator would only need to control it remotely, without putting their life at risk.

It was easy to say, but hard to do. Research on powered exoskeletons had been underway for ten years, yet they were still in the experimental stage.

The main reason was... the technology wasn't mature enough.

Here was a simple example: hold a balloon in one hand and shake it rapidly up, down, left, and right. For a human, that movement couldn't be easier.

But for a robot, it was practically impossible!

Why? Robots had no self-awareness. They had no idea how much force they were using or how they should shake the balloon. All of that had to be solved with mathematics.

No matter how sensitive they were, sensors could never match the full range of functions offered by human skin. To hold a balloon, the mechanical hand first had to adjust the coordinated pressure of its fingers. The force couldn't be too great or too weak, or the balloon would be crushed. Shaking it rapidly was even more difficult.

It was said that ten years ago, a small company had invented a patent for rapidly measuring pressure—the "MIA Pressure Sensing System." It was the leather glove Ye Kaifu had used, and it earned him hundreds of millions in patent fees a year.

Of course, besides coordinated pressure, there were many other challenges, such as joint actuation, bodily balance, and control algorithms. A project this complex involved all kinds of hardware and software, with codebases easily running to hundreds of thousands of lines. It was more than Zhang Yuan could handle on his own.

So he only wanted to solve one particularly critical problem and turn it into a paper or a patent. It would be even better if it could generate revenue for the foundation.

"Come on, let's write a paper!"

He got right to it, and a line of small text appeared on the screen.

"A Kinematic Analysis Theory for High-Degree-of-Freedom Robots Based on Geometric Group Theory and Topology"...

The more he studied it, the more he realized how profound and intricate the ideas were.

His old man's idea focused on the complex kinematics of a "27-degree-of-freedom" mechanical hand. It drew on group theory, topology, and some knowledge of hypercomplex numbers, and it was quite a struggle to follow.

Even if he understood the inspiration behind it, that didn't mean he could smoothly write the whole paper.

His old man had only given him the general direction. Zhang Yuan would have to fill in all the many gaps that followed.

Writing a paper was a painful process, like wringing water out of a sponge. There were countless details to work through, and it wasn't easy to fully express an idea.

Zhang Yuan's mind raced as he entered a state of intense concentration. He tried to sort out the whole line of reasoning, but was soon stumped by a flood of questions about the details.

Sometimes, problems that seemed "obvious" became stumbling blocks when you tried to write them up. They suddenly seemed anything but obvious.

Zhang Yuan sighed deeply.

"With this many degrees of freedom, plus those strange algorithms, I can understand it with my current abilities, but I really can't come up with it independently. I wonder how Dad thought of it..."

"By the way, Ye Kaifu, could you show me your control program?"

"What program?" Ye Kaifu turned around.

"The program for that mechanical hand."

"Oh, sure, no problem. I'm not very good at this kind of programming, to be honest. I'm self-taught..." Ye Kaifu said cautiously.

Saying he wasn't very good at it was just modesty.

Being able to write a program like that already put him way ahead of the average undergraduate!

Ye Kaifu watched Zhang Yuan with a competitive glint in his eyes, wanting to know just how good this new roommate was.

Young people were always a little competitive, especially these astronauts from all over the country, who were probably all pretty outstanding.

Before long, he had sent the relevant program to Zhang Yuan's computer.

Zhang Yuan pinched the bridge of his nose and looked through the code.

How should he put it? Ye Kaifu really was an amateur. His programming habits weren't very good...

There weren't any comments in the code, for starters, and the variables and functions were all named "a," "b," "c," and "d," making it impossible to follow.

The downside was that if enough time passed, even the programmer himself might forget what his code did.

Still, the algorithm itself was much simpler than the idea his old man had proposed.

Before long, he had worked out the general approach.

The leather glove was an extremely sensitive pressure sensor. Movements of the human fingers caused changes in the pressure on the glove. Then, after processing the data with a certain algorithm, it could determine the exact direction in which the fingers were moving.

"Then you send the direction of movement to the mechanical hand, and it follows along."

The idea was straightforward, but there was no particularly sophisticated mathematical model. It relied mainly on the built-in features of the "MIA Pressure Sensing System."

By the standards of proper scientific research, it was nothing special.

Of course, Ye Kaifu was only an undergraduate, so no one could expect too much of him. No one expected undergraduates to produce groundbreaking work.

Zhang Yuan thought it over carefully and identified a large number of ways it could be improved.

"Bro, is something wrong?" Seeing the many expressions on Zhang Yuan's face—first deep in thought, then frowning—Ye Kaifu couldn't help asking with concern.

But inwardly, he wondered, Could you really understand the whole algorithm in such a short time?

That doesn't make sense. It took me ages to figure it out...

Anyway, my ex-girlfriend and her male best friend definitely wouldn't understand it.

"Ah, it's nothing. There are just a few parts..." Zhang Yuan turned around. Seeing that Ye Kaifu didn't look offended, he continued, "...where I have a slightly different opinion. Don't take it the wrong way, okay?"