647 The Secretive and Modest Professor Lu
Yang Zhongquan stared at the S-shaped test piece in his hand. He was in disbelief.
One shouldn’t estimate this small S-shaped metal sheet. The surface of the metal object followed a spline function, which was generated by using a control point spline. This was very similar to the shape of aircraft wings.
Because of the twisted S-shape, the curved surface was at an acute angle with the base, therefore only a five-axis linkage machine tool could produce a shape like this. Also, the feed rate had to be changed several times during the machining process. This was a test of the performance of the machine.
Therefore, what reflected in the final S-shaped product wasn’t only the machining accuracy, but also the force, heat, vibration, noise, and other error factors.
Yang Zhongquan didn’t know what the control system for this machine tool was, but his intuition told him that it would be difficult to achieve this level of accuracy even if Siemens tailored a CNC system for this machine tool.
Lu Zhou saw Yang Zhongquan’s expression and knew that Xiao Ai’s performance was too good. He didn’t know how to explain himself.
However, he thought…
Why the f*ck do I need to explain myself?
I don’t need to explain anything!
Therefore, he casually made up a reason.
“I met a few friends while studying in Europe, and some of them were experts in this field. I was told that he was working on a machine tool control system based on neural networks and machine learning…”
“This is impossible!” Yang Zhongquan’s eyes went wide open. “The application of the neural networks and machine learning algorithms on machine tools has been researched before, but it is all theoretical. There aren’t any examples of algorithms being able to improve the accuracy of machine tools…”
Lu Zhou used his chin to point toward the machine.
“The example is right in front of you.”
Yang Zhongquan went silent for a while.
“Who is your friend?”
Lu Zhou said, “I’m not telling you.”
Yang Zhongquan: “…”
Secretary Wu: “…”
Director Li: “…”
The atmosphere in the warehouse was a bit awkward.
Lu Zhou didn’t want to end things on a bad note, so he looked at the engineer, then at Yang Zhongquan. He continued to speak, “I can’t tell you where I got the system, but if you want to buy it, I might consider selling it.”
Yang Zhongquan said, “Your CNC system is compatible with other machines?”
“Of cour… I don’t know.” Lu Zhou suddenly changed his reply. “But whatever machine you want to install the system on, bring it over here, and I’ll find someone to see if they can install the CNC system on it.”
Yang Zhongquan didn’t ask who. After all, he knew that Lu Zhou wouldn’t tell him. He asked, “What about the price?”
Lu Zhou didn’t have a sense of money, so he said, “Don’t bring me a low-end machine tool, I don’t have the time for that. I’ll only tailor CNC systems to high-end machine tools. A million per machine.”
Before Yang Zhongquan could speak, Secretary Wu quickly said, “Deal!”
Lu Zhou: “…”
Did I ask for too low?
…
During dinner time.
A group of people sat in front of the dinner table, laughing while eating.
After some drinking and eating, it was getting late. Secretary Wu whispered to Director Li, who was sitting next to him.
“Director Li, can you find out who is making the systems? Chinese machine tools are always of poor quality. If we find this person for help, I am certain that Shenyang Machine Tool will be the top machine tool manufacturer in the world!”
Even though this sounded like an exaggeration, after Secretary Wu saw the quality of the S-shaped test piece, he was totally confident about it.
The domestic CNC system field desperately needed talents, and to let a huge talent like this stay in a research institute was painful for Secretary Wu.
Director Li didn’t say anything. He just smiled and looked at him.
Even though he was drinking, he wasn’t drunk yet.
After a while, he said, “The person wants to stay in the Institute for Advanced Study, so let’s just leave them alone, okay? Do you have to have them work in your company? Paying them to design systems for you is the same thing, right? The economy has changed, so try to keep up with the times. You’re doing business with another entity, stop trying to get me involved.”
Director Li sounded like he was criticizing Secretary Wu.
Secretary Wu smiled and tried to explain.
“I just don’t want good talents to go to waste.”
Director Li smiled and shook his head. “Then talk with Professor Lu, see if he wants to cooperate.”
Secretary Wu shut his mouth.
Lu Zhou was the chief designer of the controllable fusion project and was now the chief consultant of the moon landing project. He had made great contributions to the country. Lu Zhou didn’t have time to meet with guys like him.
If it wasn’t for the State Administration for National Defense, Lu Zhou wouldn’t have met with them in the first place.
Director Li said subtly, “Also, I don’t think his friend is necessarily the one who created the CNC system.”
Secretary Wu paused for a second before asking, “What do you mean?”
Director Li stared at him and said, “Around six or seven years go, he wrote more than a dozen theses on artificial intelligence, neural network, and drone logistics. Even though it was sent to an unknown journal, some of the experts from the information engineering department found and read the theses. They all agreed that these theses couldn’t be written by an average scholar. After all these years, if his programming ability stayed the same or even improved… He might have done something incredible himself.”
Secretary Wu was in shock and disbelief.
“So you’re saying he is the one who wrote the CNC system code? But this is totally different from mathematics, this is…”
“It’s ridiculous, right?” Director Li smiled and said, “Sometimes I think so too, but it’s not impossible. Think about it, he spent all that effort buying the equipment, so how could he forget about the crucial CNC system?”
Secretary Wu said, “But he didn’t know…”
Director Li shook his head.
“Even if he didn’t know, what about the people who helped him buy the equipment?”
Director Li stared at Secretary Wu, who was totally frozen, and said with nuances, “Not to mention, do you really think the CNC system is more difficult than a controllable fusion control system?”