"Dali, can my answer just now clear your doubts?"
After Chen Yiqing explained the algorithm, he looked at Wang Dali expectantly.
"Brilliant! This is a brilliant real-time algorithm that answered my question perfectly."
Wang Dali looked eager to learn and praised him profusely: "Sure enough, the final answer to any problem cannot be separated from mathematics. It's a pity that my mathematics scores were average back then, otherwise I should have become a mathematician."
Zhang Li asked curiously: "Wang Gong, what major did you study back then?"
"I majored in mechanical electronics, but I am not a person who engages in scientific research. I am good at hands-on skills and prefer to tinker with messy things, so I became a hardware engineer after graduation."
"After more than ten years of hard work in this industry, I finally found my place in Sanqing."
Wang Dali couldn't help but feel filled with emotion when he recalled his journey after graduating from college.
"Although I can't be a scientist like you, I can still be considered as a contribution to the engineering community."
Zhang Li smiled sweetly and said: "Based on your current achievements, you are also a great craftsman, worthy of our admiration."
When Wang Dali was praised like this by her, he felt very happy and quickly said a few words of humility.
Wen Renlong suddenly asked: "You, an undergraduate, can develop such a big project as an artificial heart. It's very impressive. Now that you are the chief engineer of Sanqing Equipment, your school needs to recognize an outstanding alumnus or something."
Wang Dali shook his head: "Our school has too many outstanding alumni, and I don't count."
Wen Renlong asked curiously: "Which school are you from?"
"Zhejiang University."
Wen Renlong nodded: "Zhejiang University is still a very strong major. No wonder you are so good."
Wang Dali laughed, with a happy expression on his face, as if he was lost in memories.
"I studied everything in this major, including mechanics, electronics, and programming. Every day the courses were extremely full. I also had to study computers and electromagnetics as electives. In short, I was really swimming in the ocean of knowledge. Here, I’m so dedicated to learning.”
"There were a lot of experimental classes at that time, and I could find the teacher to use in the laboratory after each class. Not to mention how happy I was."
"My greatest achievement in my life is that when I was studying, I won the favor of my wife among a group of bachelors with my strong hands-on skills. She was the only girl in the class. She was also pretty and could look good wherever she went. She is a goddess that attracts everyone’s attention, but unfortunately she was good at theory classes but terrible at practice, so she fell in love with me.”
"We were together every day. We were either studying in the library or DIYing in the laboratory. I don't know how many singles envied us, hehehehe."
Wen Renlong's face instantly showed envy, jealousy, and hatred, and then turned into infinite regret.
"Nima, why didn't I find a female classmate when I was studying? The girls from Beijing University are famous for their beauty and beauty."
"No, after the meeting I have to look for the schoolmates from back then to see if any of them are single or divorced."
Zhang Li's eyes were filled with stars: "Wow, it's so romantic. Campus love, growing old hand in hand, is simply the most beautiful thing in the world."
Wang Dali scratched his head in embarrassment: "I just don't dare to go to the class reunion now, for fear of being beaten by the other 40 people in the class."
"Ahem," Chen Yiqing saw that the topic was about to go off track again, so he quickly cleared his throat and said.
"Getting back to the subject, as long as the algorithm can keep up with the changes in the data, the computer in the laboratory will send the movement control signals from the monkey's brain to the robotic arm in the next room."
"The experiment was successful. The robotic arm moved. That's it, we have these two motion trajectories."
After swiping, two bright lines appeared on the screen.
"The red lines above are the movements of the monkey's arms when it plays the game."
"The blue lines below are the movements of the robotic arm controlled by the brain-computer interface."
"The trajectories of these two lines are basically the same and overlap directly."
"It means that after connecting to the brain-computer interface, the robotic arm can make exactly the same movements as the monkey's own arm."
"But I'm not going to play the video this time. I'll take you there later to see for yourself how monkeys use their minds to play games."
"Okay, this is all we have achieved so far."
Chen Yiqing looked around, then his face became solemn and he said seriously.
"The next step is the main event."
"First, we need to improve electrode materials to solve the problem of difficulty in large-scale collection of bioelectric signals."
"When microelectrodes are placed in cerebral blood vessels, the neural electrical signals that can be collected are definitely not as accurate as cerebral cortex nerve cells. We must improve the collection accuracy as much as possible."
"At the same time, the new microelectrode array will be shaped into a neurovascular stent so that it can be placed into the blood vessels of the brain."
A map of the brain's veins appeared on the screen again.
A red laser spot stays on top of the brain.
"We have two options for vascular implantation in the brain, one is arterial blood vessels and the other is venous blood vessels."
"Here is the middle cerebral artery, which supplies blood to parts of the frontal lobe, as well as the lateral surface of the parietal lobe, which control major motor and sensory functions of the face, throat, hands and arms."
"In addition to the middle arteries, we can also choose cerebral veins. The probability of thrombosis in venous blood vessels and blood vessel rupture is much lower than that of arterial blood vessels."
"It's just that, in this way, it will be very difficult for us to implant microelectrodes, which is much more difficult than simply placing them in the cerebral cortex."
"The advantage is that after the stent is expanded, it can be firmly fixed on the blood vessel wall, can be left in place for a long time, and can even be permanently implanted without causing inflammation or damage to the cerebral cortex."
"The application of vascular stents has been proven for a long time and is gentler and safer than craniotomy implantation."
Having said this, Chen Yiqing looked at Wang Dali: "Dali will be responsible for the stent. I will send you the detailed parameters and the microelectrode data currently used, and then we will make an appointment every week to follow up on this." Part of the job.”
Seeing Wang Dali nodding, he moved his eyes again and looked at Zhang Li.
"When microelectrodes are placed in blood vessels, the collected neural signals will be more numerous and chaotic. Your current task is to collect as many neural signals as possible in the monkey's brain, then test and classify them, and label them in detail so that Make subsequent comparisons.”
Zhang Li nodded solemnly, writing down notes in her notebook with the pen in her hand.
Chen Yiqing finally looked at Wen Renlong.
"You can't be idle either. Together with Zhang Li, you can improve the signal processing algorithm. See if you can accurately identify the monkey's movement intention through a specific signal."
"Because the brain signals generated by the monkeys' different actions are definitely different, we need to collect as many signals as possible and use algorithms to accurately identify them."
"When Dali makes a new microelectrode stent, we will implant it into the monkey's cerebral blood vessels, and the brain-computer interface experiment will officially begin."
Finally, he paused, looked over again one by one, looked directly at everyone, and spoke slowly.
"The total length of blood vessels in the brain exceeds 400 kilometers, which can reach almost any part of the brain and are almost close to the surface of the brain."
"If the vascular stent solution is successful, we will be able to access parts of the brain that have never been accessed before, opening up a huge unknown treasure trove and achieving unprecedented achievements."
Bang bang bang!
Everyone stood up excitedly and applauded enthusiastically.
****
Over the next few weeks, the four were busy working.
Wang Dali designed a cerebral vascular stent based on Chen Yiqing's idea.
This stent is small in size, only about the size of a silver needle, and consists of expandable mesh stent electrodes.
No open brain surgery is required, just a small minimally invasive surgery on the neck.
Then, through cerebral angiography, with the help of a catheter, it can pass through the blood vessels in the neck and a series of curved cerebral blood vessels to reach the blood vessels above the motor cortex of the brain.
After implantation, as long as the auxiliary catheter is removed, the stent will begin to expand on the blood vessel wall to form a hollow three-dimensional grid.
The scaffold collects neural electrical signals generated by the brain and transmits them to an external receiver.
"It is expected that a stent will use 20 sensors, and the material of the stent should preferably be a flexible alloy, and the size should be small, with a diameter of no more than 5mm, so that it can be placed in all brain blood vessels."
"Of course, it's not impossible to make it smaller, but in that case, we can only reduce the number of sensors on it."
As soon as his thoughts reached this point, Wang Dali suddenly got stuck.
An image flashed through his mind instantly. It was a hat on the monkey's head, with four neural chips and receivers hidden inside.
"It seems that once the neural electrical signals are collected, how to transmit them is also a problem."
"The monkey underwent a craniotomy. After the microelectrodes are placed, the connected wires can be used to transmit signals. But the stent is in the blood vessel. To transmit the signal, the only way to transmit the signal is through the blood vessel."
He patted his forehead and suddenly had a good idea.
"Just like a submarine cable, a wire can be connected to the back of the stent to transmit nerve signals. As for the outlet, it can be placed at the blood vessel in the neck."
"A receiver can be implanted under the skin of the neck and then transmit the received neural signals to an external portable decoder through wireless technology."
"The decoder has a powerful chip that converts these neural signals into specific digital commands through machine learning algorithms."
"Then again through wireless technology, the exoskeleton or electronic devices can be controlled."
"In this way, paralyzed patients can use their minds to complete a series of operations such as surfing the Internet and drinking water."
"Okay, let's follow this idea and design the bracket first."
Wang Dali snapped his fingers proudly and continued to lower his head to perfect the design drawings.
At the same time, Wen Renlong and Zhang Li were busy recording new brain signals and designing new algorithms and computer programs.
The four people devoted themselves to their work and prepared for the upcoming brain-computer interface experiment.
****
Time flies, and a month has passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, the Neuroscience Laboratory welcomed a special visitor.
Jian Jianyun, dressed in white professional attire, followed closely behind Chen Yiqing and walked into the laboratory with a curious look on his face.
As soon as I entered the door, I saw a row of people standing in the corridor in front of me. They all stretched their necks and looked towards the door, like tourists in a zoo watching rare animals.
When Jian Lian Yun appeared in front of them, everyone shouted in unison.
"Hello, Doctor Jane."
Jian Lian Yun suddenly heard this thunderous shout and was startled, almost turning pale.
Chen Yiqing quickly explained: "These are all employees of the laboratory. There are not many people, about fifty or sixty people. When they heard that you were coming to work together, they were very excited and wanted to see the true face of the boss lady."
Jian Lian Yun breathed a long sigh of relief, calmed down, smiled and waved gently to everyone.
"Hello everyone, nice to meet you. You are so polite, just treat me like an ordinary doctor."
Chen Yiqing stood behind him, winked at everyone, and said, "Having said hello, let's go back to work and don't cause any trouble to Dr. Jian."
Everyone said hello in unison, and then dispersed laughing.
Chen Yiqing wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and walked towards a room on the right with Jian Lianyun.
"You're here just in time. Dali and Aaron are both here, watching the monkeys playing games. I'll take you over to find them."
The two came to the closed door and pushed it open. Two tall figures came into view instantly.
It was Wen Renlong and Wang Dali, but they seemed unaware of their arrival. They stood motionless in front of the big screen, watching something intently.
Jian Jianyun glanced at it. The room was very small, only about ten square meters. Except for a large screen opposite, there was nothing on it.
She raised a hand and was about to greet the two of them when suddenly——
Bang bang bang!
A fierce wave of sound rushed towards them, swallowing the two of them, and then quickly spread to the entire room.
Jian Jian Yun's heart stopped for a second, and then he looked at the big screen.
I saw gophers emerging from the holes one after another, beating wildly.
This scene feels strangely familiar.
"A game of whack-a-mole?" Jian Jianyun exclaimed.
Chen Yiqing nodded and said softly: "Look under the screen again."
Jian Lian Yun glanced over and immediately saw a thick industrial robot arm.
There are two finger-like attachments at the end of the arms that allow for a firm grip on simple objects.
At this time, the robotic arm seemed to be controlled by an invisible hand, holding a control rod with two fingers and waving it regularly.
As the arm moves, the big stick on the screen also dances.
One by one, the gophers were knocked so hard by the huge stick that they suddenly shrank their heads and disappeared into the hole.
Bang bang bang!
Gophers popped up one after another, and were driven into holes with big sticks.
As fast as lightning and extremely accurate at the same time!
Jian Jianyun looked at the gopher and then at the mechanical arm. After looking at it several times, he finally made sure.
There is no one else but this robotic arm playing the game.
This scene gave her a huge impact instantly.
She couldn't help but open her mouth wide, and her mind was noisy, as if it was exploding.
"Oh my God, is the robotic arm controlled by thoughts?"
"This is so cool!"
A high-pitched praise came out of her mouth involuntarily.
(End of chapter)
