Perfikot was satisfied with Andrew’s caution, but she still said to Andrew: "In that case, relocate all the technicians who have come into contact with the Steam Knight armor production to the Northern Territory. If anyone is unwilling, let them come to talk to me."
Although Perfikot said this, she wasn’t actually too concerned about the leakage of the Steam Knight’s blueprints and technology.
The Steam Knight is actually composed of three parts: the armor itself, the knight as the wearer, and the power source capable of driving the armor.
The knight is the easiest part of the three to solve. Every major nation has organized knight units, and even if the standard is raised to great knights, for every nation, it’s merely about selecting an elite unit.
Compared to knights, the armor itself indeed poses some difficulty.
However, the challenging part is not how to manufacture it, but the core design concept.
It’s similar to powered exoskeletons in the original world, where various countries had related research during the Cold War. The earliest exoskeleton patent can even be traced back to the period of the Second Industrial Revolution, showing that the principle is not complex. Thɪs chapter is updated by novᴇlfire.net
But until Perfikot crossed over, no country had truly produced powered exoskeletons that could be used in real combat.
Although some armies have been equipped, it was mostly used in small-scale trials to collect experimental data.
The reason for such slow progress, aside from the crucial energy issue, which was the inability to produce portable high-density energy sources capable of long-term powering the exoskeleton, was primarily human-machine interaction control.
Briefly, human-machine interaction involves three steps:
The first step is perceiving human behavioral intentions and collecting human information;
The second is to assess the external environment and calculate the autonomous operation strategy for all motors through algorithms;
Finally, during physical movement implementation, constantly loop back to the previous step, evaluating the degree of behavior achievement, considering external environmental changes and operation intents, and adjusting system movement strategy in real-time.
The main challenges in exoskeleton development are effectively obtaining human intent, quickly making subsequent assessments, and ensuring synchronized actions between the machine and the human body.
After all, the essence of wearing a powered exoskeleton is to save effort and assist. If it requires more effort than not wearing, or if a leg lift turns into a large split, that’s clearly unacceptable.
Perfikot faced similar issues at the initial stage of developing the Steam Knight armor.
Amplifying the wearer’s strength by three times is not a simple task. It’s not just a matter of attaching several hydraulic links to the arm and increasing output power by three times human exertion.
The installed assist structures must precisely match the force mode of corresponding actions, ensuring no errors occur, or mistakes in timing or direction during exertion.
Situations like attempting to retract an arm, only for the assist structure to break it—absolutely cannot happen.
To solve this problem, profound research into human body structure and vast computational data is necessary.
For any nation in this world, this is not something that can be resolved in a short time.
Even for Perfikot herself, without the differential engine and mechanical logic, she wouldn’t have been able to solve these problems.
If this issue couldn’t be solved, merely having the Steam Knight’s blueprints would only result in a replica of her product—a shell without the critical core part.
The Imperial Military can replicate it, but they rely on Perfikot’s assistance. The critical micro-differential engine with mechanical logic is a technology exclusive to Perfikot.
Indeed, she sold her maid automaton technology along with the Alchemy Workshop, but the opposing side can merely reproduce her technology template without altering any content in the mechanical logic part.
Thus, the differential engine produced by the opposing side can still only load the maid automaton’s instruction set and cannot load the Steam Knight’s instruction set.
This instruction set is exclusive to Perfikot herself, and she provided a standard template to the Imperial Military, enabling them to replicate the Steam Knight.
As long as the military personnel aren’t idiots, they won’t let anyone threaten this template.
Moreover, information about this template is only known to a few military high-ranking executives; others have no idea of its existence.
Even if the template was leaked, do you think Perfikot might have set a backdoor in the instruction set?
Anyway, she has never worried about anyone using the Steam Knight against her.
"Can you manufacture large mechanical components?" After discussing the relocation of Steam Knight armor technicians with Andrew, Perfikot suddenly asked.
Andrew was puzzled but answered anyway: "That depends on how large the components are. We can manufacture parts the size of harbor cranes. Is there something large you need to manufacture?"
As he asked, excitement and anticipation showed in Andrew’s expression.
In his view, there aren’t many things that can be called large components, which could likely be the Flying Airship’s parts.
Even if not, they’re at least similar.
This undoubtedly means orders and business, along with significant profit.
Perfikot nodded and said: "I plan to manufacture a large autonomous machine for the exploration and construction in the Northern Territory, which requires some large-sized metal components. If you can produce them, I won’t need to find someone from the mainland to do it.
It’s undeniable that the New Continent’s industrial development lacks a bit, and many things still aren’t comparable to the mainland."
Andrew deliberately ignored Perfikot’s comments on the New Continent’s industrial development, able to discern the enticing market from her description.
He merely inquired curiously: "Could you describe its approximate size? I need to check if the factory can manufacture such large parts."
"Around ten meters, maybe? In my vision, this autonomous machine cannot be too big or too small, at least equivalent to a two-story house," Perfikot described, but she wasn’t confident in any detailed conception, only providing a rough description.
Upon hearing this, Andrew made a mental calculation and nodded affirmatively: "As long as the length doesn’t exceed twenty meters and the width doesn’t exceed five meters, I think my factory should be able to manufacture such large parts.
But considering the strength of metal materials... Count, are you really sure you need something that big?"