97: Chapter 97 Pre-emptive Response Malfunction? I'll Fix It!

March 2017, Fei City.

Yaodong District, Xingchen Technology Park construction site.

The main structures of the research building and the headquarters office building were completed amidst the sound of ceremonial cannons, and interior decoration had officially begun. If all went well, they would be ready for use in about two months.

Guan Yi stood beside Chen Xu and handed him a document.

"Boss, Huawei, Xiaomi, and OV have once again expressed their desire to purchase SC-V1Mini batteries through various channels this morning."

"Huawei's quote is the highest."

"They are willing to pay a twenty percent premium on top of our phone's retail price to purchase the batteries separately."

Chen Xu withdrew his gaze from the spiraling tower taking shape in the distance.

"Refuse them."

"They have all been refused," Guan Yi replied.

"They won't give up."

"I know."

Chen Xu picked up his safety helmet.

"But they will get used to it."

He turned and walked toward the temporary meeting room on the construction site.

Guan Yi followed behind him, looking at the young man's back.

The core technology that the entire Chinese mobile phone industry was going crazy for was, to him, not even worth mentioning.

...

Jing City, Puji Medical Group Headquarters.

The atmosphere in the top-floor meeting room was oppressive.

Chairman He Zhenbang sat in the main seat, looking at the report in front of him.

Chief Engineer Li Weidong stood, with the core members of the project team behind him.

"Chairman He, new problems have arisen in the clinical tests."

Li Weidong turned on the projector.

On the screen was a video of a test subject wearing a "Rebirth" series powered prosthesis.

The appearance of the prosthesis and the movement of the joints were practically perfect.

The test subject attempted to pick up a water cup from the table.

The arm lifted, the movement fluid.

But at the moment the fingers were about to touch the cup, the five metal fingers suddenly spread apart in an uncoordinated fashion, then snapped shut violently.

Bang.

The glass water cup was instantly crushed.

The video paused.

The meeting room was silent.

"Mechanical failure?" He Zhenbang asked.

"No."

Li Weidong shook his head.

"The mechanical precision fully meets the design requirements, with an error of less than 0.001 mm. Sensor feedback is normal, and motor response is normal."

He switched to another data chart.

There were two curves on the chart, one red and one blue.

"The red curve represents the motor nerve signals sent by the test subject's brain."

"The blue curve is the execution feedback signal from the prosthetic motors."

Li Weidong pointed his finger at the screen.

"Everyone, please look. From the signal being sent to the motor executing it, the time difference is less than five milliseconds."

"The problem lies right here."

"It's too fast."

The experts in the meeting room looked puzzled.

Li Weidong explained.

"The human nervous system is a delayed closed-loop system."

"The brain issues a command, the muscles execute it, and sensory nerves feed the result back to the brain. There is an inherent biological delay in this process."

"All of our fine motor skills are muscle memories formed on the basis of adapting to this delay."

"However, our prosthesis has no delay."

"The moment the brain issues the command to 'slightly bend the fingers,' the prosthetic motor completes it within five milliseconds. But in the brain's expectation, this action should take fifty milliseconds to complete, and it needs to receive tactile feedback simultaneously."

"Command and execution are severely mismatched."

"The brain sends a command but receives a result that is completely ahead of schedule and lacks sensation. It immediately judges it as an 'execution error' and then subconsciously issues a correction command, such as 'open fingers.' This new command is again instantly executed by the prosthesis."

"The final result is that the brain's commands and the prosthesis's movements become completely chaotic at high speeds."

"The test subject feels as though they cannot control the hand."

Li Weidong turned off the projector.

"We have created a prosthesis that exceeds the limits of the human body, but our bodies cannot master it."

"The bottleneck has shifted from precision manufacturing to the fields of bioelectronics and neuroscience."

After listening, He Zhenbang remained silent for a long time.

He stood up.

"Weidong, you stay at the group, reassure the test subjects, and suspend all clinical projects."

"I'm going to Fei City."

Li Weidong looked up.

"Chairman He, you mean?"

"Only the one who tied the bell can untie it."

He Zhenbang picked up his coat.

"It seems only President Chen can solve this matter."

...

Two days later.

Xingchen Technology Park, construction site container meeting room.

He Zhenbang met Chen Xu.

There were no pleasantries.

He pushed a laptop directly in front of Chen Xu.

On it was the video of the crushed water cup and the full data report compiled by Li Weidong.

"President Chen, we've encountered a difficult problem."

He Zhenbang maintained a very humble posture.

"Our prosthesis's response speed exceeds the adaptation limit of the human nerves; we call it 'Advanced Response Dysregulation'."

"The test subjects are unable to perform any fine operations; they feel that their brains and the prosthesis are disconnected."

"Chief Engineer Li's team tried to use software algorithms to artificially increase the delay, but the effect was poor. The prosthesis became sluggish, losing the point of high precision."

"We are caught in a dilemma."

He Zhenbang finished and looked at Chen Xu.

He placed all his hope on this young man.

Chen Xu looked at the data curves on the screen and did not answer immediately.

Mechanical engineering, he could solve.

Biological neuroscience was beyond his current scope of knowledge.

His consciousness sank into his mind.

The blue technology library interface expanded.

In the search box, he entered keywords.

[Neural Synergy]

The interface refreshed.

He skipped the purely theoretical materials and filtered directly for solutions.

A software algorithm package—the effect was a slight improvement in synergy, priced at ten thousand technology points.

Not enough.

A predictive motion compensation system, which predicted user intent through algorithms, priced at fifty thousand technology points.

Treating the symptoms, not the cause.

His gaze stopped on the third option.

[Adaptive Neural Synergy Processor]

A hardware-level chip.

It could directly read, parse, and simulate neural pulse signals.

It would form a two-way data path with the user's brain.

Realizing the unification of 'perception' and 'drive'.

Price: Eighty thousand technology points.

Eighty million.

A chip that could truly make a machine part of the body.

Chen Xu's consciousness returned to reality.

He closed the laptop.

"Chairman He."

Chen Xu looked at He Zhenbang.

"I can solve this problem."

He Zhenbang snapped his head up, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Chen Xu's tone had no fluctuations.

"Give me one month."

"I will give you a brand-new solution."

He Zhenbang looked at Chen Xu.

That familiar confidence of being in total control.

This young man always had a way to solve the desperate situations in others' eyes.

He stood up and nodded solemnly to Chen Xu.

"Good."

"I will wait for your news."