Inside Boston Dynamics in Waltham, Massachusetts, the United States.
In a laboratory located in the hardware assembly area, Goldsmith, the legendary hardware engineer of Boston Dynamics, and Antle, the company's internal chief software engineer, as well as several staff members from the White House, stood in front of a silver-white metal robot with a translucent shell.
Boston Dynamics was established nearly 30 years ago. From the beginning of its establishment, it had been dedicated to the manufacture of robot products.
In the past 30 years, they had encountered many ups and downs, and the company had changed hands several times.
But they had made enough achievements in the field of robots.
Especially in the field of humanoid robots, the Atlas robot under their banner was their most representative work of great technology.
The Atlas robot used to be the most dazzling work of humanoid robots in the world.
The outside media once believed that the Atlas robot had the potential to challenge the real humanoid robots.
In the near future, the Atlas robot might become a necessity in thousands of homes, just like cars.
However, all this beautiful dream was like a beautiful soap bubble. It looked colorful and dazzling, but it burst with a poke.
Monster Industries appeared.
From the first generation of robot hands, to the initial guardian robot products, and now to the elven maid.
Now, the first elven maid in the United States was quietly placed in the hardware assembly laboratory.
Looking at this sci-fi looking robot, the engineer Goldsmith and the others had been silent for two minutes.
No one wanted to speak, because they really didn't know what to say.
Because next to the fixed table where the elven maid was placed, there were two semi-finished Atlas robots.
One of them was not equipped with a shell, and the other was still in the initial stage of assembly, only equipped with a basic support structure.
Even if the shell of the elven maid was not removed, the people present could see at a glance the difference in hardware between the elven maid and the Atlas robot.
It was rough, messy, and filled with a large number of metal beams, round pipes, wires, and motors.
It looked like a pile of parts removed from a machine tool.
This was the Atlas robot.
In the end, it was the people from the White House who broke the silence. "Mr. Goldsmith, aren't you going to say something?"
After a full five seconds, Goldsmith came back to his senses and said without raising his head, "Say what?"
"The elven maid is right here. Even a student can see the difference between her and the Altesla robot."
Laymen could only see the difference, but they didn't know the specific details and levels of the difference. Besides, could this kind of difference be closed through some means?
Boston Dynamics was the most qualified company in the United States in the field of robot hardware. Even in the world, other than Monster Industries, they were still a T1 company.
If he wanted to study the elven maid, of course he would put it here.
It wasn't easy to get this elven maid.
The elven maid in Hua Xia had only been available for three days. They had expended a lot of effort to obtain an elven maid from the staff stationed in Hua Xia and had it flown back to the mainland via a special diplomatic plane overnight.
In order to ensure that everything went smoothly, the elven maid in front of him didn't even turn on her phone.
"Let's talk about the gap in technology first." The person in charge of the White House's technical research, Kokap, suggested, "We can disassemble the elven maid and not miss a single detail."
Goldsmith, the hardware engineer, shook his head. He was reluctant to disassemble the elven maid.
In his eyes, the elven maid was a treasure that condensed industrial technology that he couldn't imagine.
In the eyes of an artist, no matter how much he admired a work of art, he could never get enough of it.
"The technology gap is far greater than you think," Smith said self-deprecatingly.
"Actually, in my eyes, the fact that Monster Industries can create an elven maid isn't too shocking.
"Only civilian staff like you, or people in other industries, find it as unimaginable as astronauts landing on Mars.
"Even if Monster Industries really landed on Mars, I wouldn't be surprised.
"Their hardware technology really surpasses ours by too much."
Seeing that the person in the White House was a little anxious, Smith said seriously, "The elven maid in front of you is actually just an integrated product in the hardware field of Monster Industries.
"All the hardware you see can be found in Monster Industries' past products.
"Their hardware platform is already very mature. Naturally, they can easily achieve a breakthrough in the upper level of motion control products.
"Take the core hardware of the elven maid's motion system — the bionic muscle fiber.
"Monster Industries applied this technology to the Primordial Spirit Hand products two years ago.
"I've studied this material made of thermal nerve fibers many times."
"You know, this thermal nerve fiber, when disassembled under an industrial microscope, is actually a special high-resistance heat-deformable alloy wire of different diameters.
"This metal wire is not affected by room temperature changes at all when it is not conductive.
"But once it is conductive, according to the size of the resistance ohms, it can show a very accurate thermal deformation effect, almost exactly the same as the contraction process of human muscles.
"A special heat-deformable alloy wire wrapped in an insulating biological material forms a thermal nerve unit.
"Hundreds of thermal nerve units form a bionic muscle fiber motion unit."
Smith pointed at the Atlas robot in the corner and said self-deprecatingly, "Look at us again.
"Servo motors, hydraulic struts.
"These two things have been in use for decades, and they are still in use now. Can you say that there is any technological advancement compared to decades ago?
"If we can't develop a thermal nerve unit, we will never be able to follow in the footsteps of Monster Industries.
"It can't be that exaggerated, right?" Cokap, the staff member of the White House, said somewhat unconfidently, "I've seen the video of the Atlas robot before. Isn't it also able to move freely and jump around on stairs of different heights?
"Especially the moment it landed, it maintained its balance by shaking. It felt no different from a real person."
Smith sneered twice and was unwilling to say more.
He was a hardware engineer.
He was a legend in his professional field, and he was already famous in the United Kingdom before.
Real engineers disdained to tell lies or boast about themselves. In their eyes, good was good, and bad was the original sin.
It was the chief software engineer, Anter, who told the truth.
Other than Monster Industries, it was true that Boston Dynamics was the leader in the field of humanoid robots.
It was also true that the robot dog they developed in cooperation with the military became the first ground machine product to be used in the military field.
The Atlas robot was one of their greatest achievements.
But was the Atlas robot really as good as it was in the video?
No.
The Atlas robot was composed of an omnidirectional chassis that could achieve three degrees of freedom and a seven-axis linkage arm.
It used the center of gravity to move the chassis to solve the problem of balance and inertial force generated during movement.
Compared to other technology companies' six-axis robotic arms and vertical lifting columns, the Atlas robot was undoubtedly very advanced.
Through the liquid strut energy storage plan on its legs, the Atlas robot could also achieve the ability to jump on one leg.
But all of this was just a pile of building blocks.
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