Chapter 540: Getting on the Right Track

Sun Cheng has been in a very good mood lately; shortly after the hurricane ended, he disappeared briefly for two days again under the guise of a business trip.

Returning to Nublar Island, he brought Barricade along to the island to supervise the robots as they began work on rebuilding Base No. 3.

With Barricade's supervision, Sun Cheng did not stay on the island for long and soon returned to Xia Country.

Having been delayed for so long, the development layout that had fallen into a semi-stagnant state in reality began to enter the fast lane once again.

With the Intelligent Machinery Laboratory officially put into use, his cooperation with the Xia Country government entered a honeymoon period.

Future Machinery had already been established for over two months; taking advantage of the graduation season, Sun Cheng had recruited a batch of fresh graduates with high-quality credentials from various major universities in Nandu.

The secondary national defense military production license he wanted was also sent over shortly after two sets of semi-covered mechanical exoskeleton armor were taken away by Lieutenant Colonel Liu Nianyuan.

Arriving with them were more than twenty retired soldiers who had undergone specialized training and were capable of handling security work for key national defense research units.

Like the Intelligent Machinery Laboratory, the office space for Future Machinery was also arranged in the Ningjiang District.

Because of the special care from the Equipment Department, they also obtained a 47-mu plot of land in the core area of the Ningjiang High-tech Park to build a dedicated factory for producing mechanical exoskeleton armor.

A 47-mu plot of land is indeed not worth mentioning compared to large-scale production bases that span thousands of mu.

But for a factory specifically producing mechanical exoskeleton armor for the military, it was barely enough.

Most importantly, most of the nearby factory areas belong to several domestic military-industrial defense enterprises, so the security is trustworthy.

The dedicated exoskeleton factory is being constructed by a state-owned construction contractor; because the scale is not large, it is expected that the first steel-structure workshop will be completed in at most a month and a half.

It is clear that the country is a bit anxious, but Sun Cheng can understand.

The political situation in Central Asia has been turbulent since the beginning of the year, and as a battleground for the influence of major powers, everyone understands the principle that if you do not advance, you retreat.

Moreover, with the "Pivot to Asia-Pacific" strategy in recent years, the Americans have also been harboring plenty of malice, stirring up trouble around Xia Country, and even personally getting involved on many occasions.

Therefore, the country's pressure regarding military equipment is increasing day by day.

Sun Cheng manufactured a total of four finished sets of semi-covered mechanical exoskeleton armor, two of which were taken by the Equipment Department for testing.

The other two were placed by him inside the newly operational Intelligent Machinery Laboratory.

As for himself, he has also been staying at the Intelligent Machinery Laboratory recently, helping to test and attempting to continue improving the low-level version of the semi-covered mechanical exoskeleton armor he had crudely hammered out initially.

For mechanical exoskeleton armor, the products currently designed by various countries are still very primitive, including the ones Sun Cheng brought out; they all consist of three parts: the main body, the leg units, and the arm units.

The main body of Sun Cheng's mechanical exoskeleton armor is the part worn on the chest and back; the chest area consists of three to five horizontal and vertical steel shafts plus several flexible nylon straps, mostly for fixation; the back area consists of a mechanical spine running through it, several steel shafts, and several nylon straps.

It is no exaggeration to say that the mechanical spine is the core of this mechanical exoskeleton armor; two Lithium-Air Batteries are fixed somewhere on the spine, and besides that, there are extremely complex circuits and drive systems inside.

In addition, three mounting points are configured on the mechanical spine, two of which are located on the upper part of the back, and one is located at the coccyx; the two mounting points on the back can be used to add some equipment when needed, such as large clip-on equipment packs, weapon units, etc., while the mounting point at the coccyx is where the external control pack is connected.

The control pack is placed at the waist so that the soldier wearing this exoskeleton armor can control, switch on, and drive the system, as well as other functions of the armor.

The leg units are mainly composed of steel shafts and nylon straps, with four small propulsion nozzles at the feet.

The main body of the arm units is also several steel shafts and nylon straps, with two mounting points attached to each of the left and right arms and hands for the use of weapon units.

Because it is a simplified version based on the latest generation HULC mechanical exoskeleton from Berkeley Bionics, this semi-covered mechanical exoskeleton armor, which has not yet been finalized and is still using the "Test Type 1" name, is actually very simple in structure.

Even if you exclude its full electric drive system and two Lithium-Air Batteries, the remaining cost is less than 10,000 Xia Yuan.

"I'm ready!"

After "Test Type 1" was manufactured, Sun Cheng had already conducted several simple tests himself, and only after confirming there were no problems did he send two of the sets to Liu Nianyuan and the others.

However, after the Intelligent Machinery Laboratory began operations, in addition to fixed research topics, continuing to perfect and improve the "Test Type 1" semi-covered mechanical exoskeleton armor also became one of them.

Without interfering with other research projects in the laboratory, Sun Cheng, who was temporarily free, personally selected a research team of 27 people.

The entire team was almost entirely composed of fresh graduates from several key science and engineering universities in Nandu, but he still poached two doctoral students majoring in mechanical manufacturing and automation from Professor Chen Yuan's team.

A group of people has been having a blast recently with the two sets of "Test Type 1" mechanical exoskeleton armor.

"Test Type 1 mechanical exoskeleton armor, 17th test, wearer—Wang Jun, inspectors—Liu Yiming, Liu Jun! Preparing to start..."

Sun Cheng stood quietly to the side, watching a team of young people around his age helping to put the dozen-kilogram mechanical exoskeleton armor onto a researcher for the 17th test.

The wearer for this test was a young man named Wang Jun; having just graduated from university, he was full of excitement as this was his first time wearing mechanical exoskeleton armor.

With both feet stepping onto the chassis of the mechanical legs, his back fitted against the mechanical spine, and his hands fitted against the mechanical arms, the personnel helping him put it on immediately put the mechanical gauntlets on Wang Jun and secured them; the clicking sounds of the buckles at the joints sounded incessantly.

Not far away, four cameras were aimed at them, meticulously recording every single frame.

"It's on, stand up and do some simple movements first!"

"Okay!"

Wang Jun suppressed his excitement, gave an OK gesture to the other researchers watching nearby, and then lowered his head to open the control pack at his waist.

The control keys inside the control pack were very simple, with only three different buttons: start, shut down, and full-power drive.

Considering that the palms are not easy to operate after putting on the mechanical exoskeleton, the distance between each button was very large.

Wang Jun had already received simple training before putting it on, and he had also watched other researchers test it over the past few days, so he could be considered barely experienced.

Therefore, after pressing the start button inside the control pack and closing the control pack again, his body quickly stood straight, accompanied by a buzzing mechanical sound.

"Do a few sets of simple movements first!"

Someone nearby reminded him.

"Okay!"

Wang Jun responded, then moved his fingers and rotated his wrists, and the fingers of the iron gauntlets also perfectly performed synchronized movements, which made the other researchers around who had not yet worn the mechanical exoskeleton armor for testing clench their fists and have their eyes glow with excitement.