Is the standard Titan any good? Of course!
In previous earthquake relief operations in the southwest region, Titan's outstanding performance has proven the excellence of this large humanoid mechanical vehicle.
They are strong and durable, flexible and convenient, and can adapt to various positions and environments almost like people.
Moreover, the various models of Titans allow them to be used in almost most situations, whether for military or civilian use, and they are of extremely high value.
This is why even though the standard Titan is expensive, the country still plans to mass-produce it.
But the cost of making this thing is indeed not cheap.
The cost of a standard Titan, no matter how streamlined it is, is almost the same as the latest fighter jet before the disaster. The country was not short of this money before the disaster, but in the current environment, it can only be said to bite the bullet and save the money first. Make a large batch and use it.
The country cannot afford to manufacture Titans on a large scale.
Even if Chen Xin streamlines it and reduces the cost to the price of a main battle tank, it cannot be mass-produced.
This is why although Chen Xin has provided the country with a large number of high-tech and good things, the country still mostly renovates and reuses the original old things.
It’s not that I’m reluctant to use good things, but I really can’t afford them.
Therefore, in the mining Titan project, the design team only adhered to one basic principle, that is, it is cheap and can be mass-produced.
The buffer cockpit that could have completely wrapped the driver was removed and replaced with the user directly exposed, with only an exoskeleton helmet and metal frame remaining for protection.
The driving mode has also been transformed from human-computer interaction operation assisted by computer intelligent programs to a more fool-like force feedback operation.
Just these two modifications directly downgraded the mining Titan from a standard Titan to a mechanical frame that is only slightly better than an exoskeleton.
Of course, the original high cost has also been reduced.
The Titan itself is expensive, which of course has a lot to do with its driving mode.
It was a metal creation weighing several tons. Even if there were various power-assisted machines inside to make this behemoth move, it was not something that the driver could manually pull.
This is just like the joystick of an airplane. In old-fashioned airplanes, the thing and the wings are connected with steel wires. In those days, flying the airplane relied on the pilot's brute force, so the scene in the cartoon where the airplane joystick is broken is really real. I’m not making this up, sometimes it’s true that even if it’s broken, it may not be able to be pulled back.
The control sticks of modern aircraft have hydraulic or electronic assistance. The larger the aircraft, the more complicated this aspect is, and the higher the cost will naturally be.
The same goes for Titan. If you want to make this big thing weighing several tons move, you have to write a complex control program so that the computer installed in the cockpit can accurately recognize the driver's instructions and give timely feedback. This is not only It requires a lot of labor and also requires the design of a fairly complex operating system.
It doesn't mean the one installed in the computer, but the system that operates the entire Titan.
This thing is the bulk of the cost. After all, electronic components, circuits, mechanical transmission structures and the like are all money.
But it's easy to switch to an exoskeleton type, with a few metal hydraulic connecting rods and a set of force sensing feedback modules, all working together.
Compared with the standard Titan, the total cost of a mining Titan is not as expensive as the cockpit of a standard Titan.
But this is also its advantage.
The purpose of this thing is to improve the mining efficiency of the mine, which means that the miners can mine more ore per unit time.
The eight-legged mining Titan prototype is indeed very efficient. It can have twice the working efficiency of the final mining Titan, but it is built at five times the manufacturing cost and requires a professional Titan pilot. under the premise.
Although professional Titan pilots have been trained, and a training base was even built near the scientific research center, the number of them is not large, only a little more than the total number of Titans produced so far.
Under such circumstances, it is obviously impossible to let the precious Titan pilots do mining work.
The optimal solution should be to directly allocate mining Titans to grassroots miners to directly improve their work efficiency.
So comparing the two, it is easy to understand why the mining Titan is so poor.
However, Chen Xin is a little dissatisfied with this. This does not mean that he is dissatisfied with the design of the mining Titan, but that he feels that it can be improved.
Asked the researcher for a mining Titan that was being tested, he sat on it himself, tried to control it, and compared it with the prototype he had sat on before.
I have to say that the contrast is really strong, and the driving comfort is really as good as heaven and earth.
Of course, overall, the mining Titan is pretty good, although the cab... no, that can only be called the driver's seat. The driver is completely exposed and cannot be called a "cabin".
Although the driving position is not comfortable enough and is completely exposed, considering that the working environment of miners is hundreds of meters underground, this simple design is not a big problem. Even if it is used in an open-pit mine, as long as the workers It won't be a problem if you wear protective clothing.
The simple exoskeleton is also easy to operate, and it only takes one or two days of training to fully master its use.
However, Chen Xin felt that the mining efficiency of this thing could still be improved.
There is only one pneumatic pickaxe, and this efficiency is really not much improved compared to the original manual mining.
"Contact the mining department and ask them to arrange a mine. We need to take this mining Titan to the site for testing. I always feel that it can be improved." Chen Xin got off the mining Titan and faced The researcher on the side said so.
However, after listening to his words, the researcher on the side asked curiously: "Academician, what do you think can be modified? The current appearance should be the most suitable, right? This has been simplified by us based on the lowest manufacturing cost. ."
"No, no, no, what I want to do is not to simplify its manufacturing cost, but to enhance its work efficiency." Chen Xin shook his head, patted the mining Titan and explained to the researcher: "Your simplification It is very well done, and its cost has indeed been effectively reduced, but mining efficiency has also been reduced, right? Although it is right and necessary to reduce costs, if the efficiency is too low, it will lose its practical significance.
So I plan to take this mining Titan to the mine for field testing to see how efficient it actually is and whether there is room for improvement. "
