Chapter 221 Bai Niu (Two in One)
Chapter 221 Bai Niu (Two in One)
After Kang Chi completed the acceptance of Pangu Base, the originally quiet Pingfeng Mountain suddenly became lively.
A truck full of equipment, equipment and materials were transported in an endless stream. Some of them were moved directly from Datang Heavy Industry, and some were new equipment ordered in advance.
After a few days of moving, Pangu Base finally gradually became quiet. Only a few hundred senior engineers from Datang Heavy Industry stayed here to assist Kang Chi in installing and debugging equipment.
Although this wave of battles looks big, in fact, the entire Pangu Base is divided into three floors, with 4 large assembly workshops, 18 small and medium-sized workshops, and hundreds of various material warehouses.
Kang Chi is currently using only one medium-sized workshop and three small workshops.
After the equipment was almost installed, Kang Chi called Yan Hui over, took out a drawing and said, “You stay here for the next two days and help me build this thing.”
Yan Hui took the drawing, took a close look at it, and then frowned.
Although the drawing had obviously been modified, Yan Hui recognized it at a glance. This was the robot arm they used in the battery swap station.
On the basis of that, Kang Chi added a mobile platform and a robot replacement module.
And that robot arm was a product provided by Shenyang Siasun Automation Company. Datang Heavy Industry did not have a drawing. Kang Chi just imitated their design and made a lot of simplifications.
The performance and precision are obviously several levels lower than theirs.
Yan Hui asked in confusion, “If you just want to add a mobile platform and a robot replacement module, why don’t you just ask Siasun for customization?”
Customization?
I want to, but since I didn’t make it myself, I can’t upgrade it…
Kang Chi complained silently in his heart, and then explained seriously: “Intelligent manufacturing robot technology is crucial to the future industrial development, so I plan to imitate and verify it myself from the most basic technology, and then continue to improve it to create an industrial robot that can undertake the automatic manufacturing and assembly of precision parts.”
After hearing this, Yan Hui’s expression suddenly became serious.
Can it automatically manufacture and assemble precision parts?
How advanced industrial robots are needed to do this? Although many factories, especially automobile manufacturing factories, use industrial robots to replace workers on the assembly line, which can not only greatly improve production efficiency and precision, but also reduce labor costs.
But in fact, there are many types of industrial robots on an assembly line, and each industrial robot can only complete a certain process on the assembly line.
In other words, they are just doing very repetitive actions, but with higher precision.
But through Kang Chi’s drawing and the meaning expressed in his words, Yan Hui could clearly feel that Kang Chi’s goal was to create a more “universal” industrial robot, and the difficulty can be imagined.
And…
”If this thing is really made, won’t the factory completely stop using ordinary workers in the future?”
”It still depends on the cost.” Kang Chi explained with a smile, “Even if I make it, the cost of one machine is tens of millions or even hundreds of millions, so it is definitely better to use manual labor.”
Yan Hui nodded, but he couldn’t hide his worries in his heart.
The main reason is that he has become superstitious about Kang Chi’s technology.
In Yan Hui’s opinion, there seems to be nothing that Kang Chi wants to do but can’t do.
So is cost really a problem? Yan Hui strongly suspected that this was just Kang Chi’s excuse. He probably didn’t want to see such high-tech things enter society too early and too quickly, causing a large number of workers in society to lose their jobs.
Yan Hui’s worries and guesses are all right.
Although according to the current trend of technological development, this day will come sooner or later, Kang Chi can also make this day come earlier.
Before he has done projects like “technological infrastructure” that can create massive employment opportunities, there is no need for this.
But to do technological infrastructure, it is actually necessary to significantly improve the knowledge and skills level of the whole people and the overall economy of the society is relatively abundant.
Otherwise, if it is forced to start, it will be a waste of money and labor, and the wonder will harm the country…
Therefore, Kang Chi is now building this thing simply to serve himself, and in order to control this technology,Cost and non-replicability are the best excuses.
So in the next few days, Kang Chi led Yan Hui and hundreds of engineers to manufacture the first generation of industrial robots at the Pangu base.
Since the technical level of this robot is relatively low, it belongs to what Kang Chi calls a “technical verification” machine. Therefore, it is basically not difficult for Yan Hui’s scientific research team, which is already outstanding even in China, to manufacture it in just three days.
After a simple test, confirming that its performance is similar to the design in the drawing, Kang Chi asked Yan Hui to take people back to Datang Heavy Industry to continue expanding the motor production line.
Soon, Kang Chi was the only one left in the huge Pangu base.
[Item: Industrial Robot]
[Manufacturer: Datang Heavy Industry]
[Item Level: 1]
[Experience: 0/10000]
[Item Status: Intact]
[Analysis Item: No Analysis Item]
[General Experience: 543464]
[Mastery Points: 39]
Looking at this industrial robot that is four meters tall, has two mechanical arms, and a crawler mobile platform, for someone like Kang Chi who has a special love for mechanical equipment, it is just like seeing a beautiful woman and is very pleasing to the eye.
[PS. If I have time in the future, I will try to use AI to match a picture for everyone. Of course, AI drawing is a bit stupid and it certainly cannot fully present the desired effect. Debugging is also very time-consuming. Let’s just make do with it for now~]
Upgrade!
General Experience -10000.
A flash of white light passed by, and the shape of this industrial robot changed slightly. The whole robot became a little more slender and flexible. The whole track was also separated into two sections, and the flexibility was improved to a certain extent.
Kang Chi’s requirement for this industrial robot was to be able to replicate at least a level 1 technology verification machine by itself, which basically met his current needs.
Kang Chi did not continue to upgrade, but conducted some tests first.
However, the test results were not ideal. The processing accuracy of the level 2 industrial robot for materials such as steel plates was only ±1.0mm, and the assembly accuracy was ±0.1mm. This accuracy was definitely no problem for making cars, but it was still not enough for making robotic arms. It needed the assistance of Kang Chi to complete the assembly.
So Kang Chi had to continue upgrading, until it was upgraded to level 4, and this industrial robot finally met Kang Chi’s requirements and could manufacture and assemble a level 1 industrial robot by itself according to the drawings.
[Item: Low-level intelligent industrial robot]
[Manufacturer: Datang Heavy Industry]
[Item level: 4]
[Experience: 0/80000]
[Item status: intact]
[Analysis item: analyzable]
[General experience: 493464]
[Mastery points: 39]
Moreover, this industrial robot is also prefixed with the words “low-level intelligence”. It can simply understand Kang Chi’s instructions, such as “faster”, “slower”, “move up 0.01mm” and other specific instructions. How intelligent it is, Kang Chi needs to further explore. In fact, Kang Chi is a little cautious about the word “intelligence”. After all, the intelligence defined by the system and the intelligence defined by humans at present may not be of the same dimension.
For example, the intelligent robots in the industrial field now actually just collect various data through various sensors and then run according to the program logic. In essence, it is just a more powerful machine. In principle, it is impossible to have its own thinking ability.
Even the so-called logical thinking ability of chatGPT is only based on the prediction and calculation of big data, not on thinking and consciousness. It can be regarded as a search engine, but it is more accurate and can reorganize and arrange information more logically.
Therefore, artificial intelligence with real independent thinking and consciousness is still far from the current technological level of human beings.
But in Kang Chi’s system, it is hard to say…
Therefore, when the entire Pangu base was built, Kang Chi once put forward a request, that is, to install an ESP emergency system, which can paralyze the electronic equipment of the entire base in special emergencies, and only he has the switch of this system.
After getting the industrial robot, the next step is to get the motor.
In fact, the motor is the cornerstone of the electric age in the entire civilization’s technology.
As long as it is something that uses electricity, except for the light-emitting type, the others are basically inseparable from the motor.
For example, children’s electric toys, air-conditioning compressors, computer hosts, mobile phone vibration motors, photolithography machine workpiece platforms, etc., anything involving movement, even the smallest things, must have a motor.
Magnetism and electricity have been in a symbiotic relationship from the beginning, and motors are the most direct manifestation of human ability to use magnetism and electricity.
Including the two technical routes of stellarators and tokamaks that ignite controlled nuclear fusion, the main test is also human’s ability to master electromagnetics. It is no exaggeration to say that as long as you master magnetism and electricity, you will master the future.
However, those things are still too far away. Kangchi’s current main task is to solve the problem of high-torque motors on heavy trucks as soon as possible.
The earliest motors used in electric vehicles were basically asynchronous induction motors. Their rotors were squirrel cage structures made of conductive metal strips. When the stator coil is powered on, the three-phase AC power inverted from the battery will generate a rotating magnetic field RMF, and the squirrel cage metal strips will cut the rotating magnetic field.
However, the asynchronous induction motor consumes 3-4% of energy to induce the current in the rotor, the energy conversion rate is low, and the starting torque is not strong enough. After exceeding a certain speed, the torque will drop sharply. This is the main reason why some electric vehicles are weak at high speed.
In order to solve these problems, researchers invented permanent magnet synchronous motors, and most domestic electric vehicle models now use this type of motor.
The rotor of the permanent magnet synchronous motor rotates under the drive of the stator magnetic field according to the principle of opposite poles attracting each other, which can provide greater starting torque and will not waste energy in the rotor.
However, because the permanent magnet synchronous motor will generate a back electromotive force, and the higher the speed, the stronger the back electromotive force, so the problem of high-speed weakness still exists.
In order to solve the high-speed problem and further increase the torque, Toyota engineers first thought of the synchronous reluctance motor.
The synchronous reluctance motor has no permanent magnet. It is made by opening several arc slots in the middle of the iron rotor and using the magnetic field to squeeze the rotor. Moreover, this design does not generate back electromotive force and has strong high-speed performance.
But the synchronous reluctance motor has a fatal disadvantage:
It vibrates a lot…
So Toyota’s engineers and designers combined the permanent magnet synchronous motor with the synchronous reluctance motor, directly stuffed the permanent magnet into the slot in the middle of the rotor, reduced the interaction between the permanent magnet magnetic field and the stator coil, and invented the built-in permanent magnet synchronous reluctance motor.
This design has both the low-speed torque of the permanent magnet synchronous motor and the high-speed torque of the synchronous reluctance motor.
This motor is used in Toyota Prius.
However, the effect is average.
Because everyone actually understands the principle, the difference is who can maximize the performance of the motor of this design through sophisticated system control and excellent industrial manufacturing capabilities.
In addition, the performance of the magnet and electromagnetic coil wire material is even more crucial to the performance of the motor.
And in this regard, Toyota is obviously not as good as Tesla.
Tesla built IPM-SynRM based on this principle and first installed it on the Model S Plaid, directly increasing its top speed to an astonishing 322KM/H, and its horsepower is as high as 1020.
Toyota was completely stunned.
And the IPM-SynRM motor used by Tesla in the Semi truck is actually this motor, but it is installed with three.
When Kang Chi designed the motor for Guizhen, in order to leave more room for future upgrades, he also referred to this design.
Kang Chi pointed to an iron box and said to the industrial robot: “Bai Niu, take out the motor inside and put it in the open space in front of me.”
”Okay!”
The industrial robot named Bai Niu by Kang Chi, the four tracks suddenly turned flexibly, opened the iron box easily, took out the motor inside and put it in front of Kang Chi.
Kang Chi couldn’t help but nodded: “Not bad, not bad.”
Without Fang Qiming, a stronger girl came to help lift the steel plate.
And it’s free.
”Thank you for the compliment, Master.”
She even knew how to reply? This low-level intelligence doesn’t feel low-level.
”Do you know why I call you Bai Niu?”
Bai Niu was stunned for a moment before she replied: “Sorry, I can’t recognize the command.”
”Well, that’s right. If you can answer, I’ll be a little scared…”
”Sorry, I can’t recognize the command.”
”…””You should just stay on standby. Don’t answer if I don’t call you. I don’t want you to reply that you can’t recognize the command every time I say something…”
”Okay, Master, please rest assured. I will remain silent when I encounter unrecognizable commands in the future.”
After Bai Niu finished speaking, she obediently walked to the wall and entered standby mode.
Look, Why do you feel a little pitiful?
Kang Chi shook his head and looked at the motor in front of him.
[Item: Synchronous Reluctance Motor with Built-in Permanent Magnet]
[Manufacturer: Datang Heavy Industry]
[Item Level: 1]
[Experience: 0/5000]
[Main Parameters of Item: Maximum Speed 13000RPM, Maximum Horsepower 460Ps]
[Item Status: Intact]
[Analysis Item: No Analysis Item]
[General Experience: 493464]
[Mastery Points: 39]
When designing this motor, Kang Chi did not cheat. It was completely hard work by him and the R&D personnel of Datang Heavy Industry in just over ten days. Therefore, the performance is much lower than that of IPM-SynRM.
However, this performance is not only enough for Guizhen, but also very good in the national electric vehicle market.
Anyway, it is much better than the one used on Qi Rui’s own electric car.
(End of this chapter)