Gopher · CS-450 · Cheap Attritable Mapper

THE MACHINE YOU CAN
AFFORD TO LOSE

Name: Gopher CS-450
Brand: Canadian Shield
SKU: CS-450

It maps, it marks, it parks. Cheap enough to send in numbers.

Recon · Route Mapping · Terminal Marking · Attritable Tier

Contact Canadian Shield → Watch the Badger Film → Back to the Underground Family

Patent pending Export-controlled — international transfer subject to Canadian government permits Mapper and marker — no warhead, no fuze, no energetic material, no self-destruct

~1.2 KG

All-up chassis mass

~0.3 M/S

Cruise speed on preset guidance

~2 HR

One-way mission endurance

Radio or GPS links aboard — nothing transmitting

What It Is

The Attritable Tier.
Built to Be Sent, Not Recovered.

Gopher CS-450 is the underground family's cheap, mass-producible, one-way mapper and marker — the platform you send into ground you are not confident you will get back, because by design it does not need to come back. It parks in place as a terminal marker at the end of its run rather than attempting recovery.

It does not dig or bore. Gopher moves through existing voids, passages and loose ground — the same category of space the family's Ferret, Mole and Muskrat platforms work — on preset guidance alone, mapping and marking as it goes. Where Badger and Aquifer make the hole, Gopher is built for the holes and passages that already exist, at a unit cost low enough to treat as consumable.

The heritage under it is the same heritage under the rest of the underground line: Canadian Shield's parent group carries three decades of horizontal-directional-drilling practice — knowing where a downhole tool is, and keeping it moving, without radio. Gopher inherits that discipline in miniature, in a chassis built to be cheap enough to lose.

The Claim

Send the robot down the hole.

In its most literal, cheapest form: a machine you can afford to lose is a machine you never have to risk a person to recover. Gopher is that machine — a mapper and marker, never a strike platform, sent where the cost of losing it is nothing next to the cost of sending a person instead.

One-way by design — no recovery attempt is the design default; it parks as a findable terminal marker.
No radio, no GPS — zero links aboard, and zero energetic material of any kind: no warhead, no fuze, no self-destruct.
Recycled-PET body — recycled-content body per the group's materials canon — what keeps unit cost low.

01 How It Works · Preset. Park. Done.

NO TETHER, NO LINK — A ROUTE LOADED ONCE

Gopher carries a minimal sensor suite — basic mapping and positioning by dead-reckoning odometry, a simple proximity sensor, and where the mission calls for it a compact camera — enough to log a map and position trail as it advances, not enough to add cost the mission doesn't need.

Guidance is preset only — the family's Tier 1: a route is loaded before entry and the unit runs it. There is no fibre tether and no real-time human-in-the-loop control, because the mission is one-way by design: nothing needs steering mid-run that preset planning and onboard dead-reckoning can't already resolve. No radio, no GPS — nothing to jam because there is nothing transmitting.

At the end of the run — route complete, or the passage goes no further — Gopher simply stops and parks. That is not a fault state. It becomes a physical, findable terminal marker at that exact location, by design. The recycled-PET body — reclaimed, flaked and dried, moulded on Canadian Shield's own dies, with qualified virgin resin held back only where structural integrity demands it — is what keeps the unit cheap enough to send and leave.

PRESET RUN CS-450 · preset route in, terminal marker parked — no recovery expected

Full Specification Sheet

The Numbers, Stated the Way We State Them.

The complete data card for the Gopher crawler — dimensions, performance, drive and guidance, sensors, construction and compliance, grouped the way a fleet buyer compares them.

Gopher CS-450 · Cheap Attritable Mapper Underground Family · Attritable Tier · One-Way Mapper/Marker

01Dimensions & Mass

Configuration: Small wheeled/tracked crawler — one-way mapper/marker
Chassis footprint: ~180 × 90 × 70 mm
All-up mass: ~1.2 kg

02Performance

Cruise speed: ~0.3 m/s
Mission endurance: ~2 hr run, one-way
Mission profile: One-way — no recovery attempt as the design default
Terminal behavior: Parks in place as a findable terminal marker at run’s end
Recovery: A deliberate, separate operation if wanted — never a default expectation

03Drive & Guidance

Drive type: Skid-steer micro-drive — 4 wheels or micro-tracks
Guidance tier: Preset (Tier 1) only — route loaded before entry
Tether & link: None — no fibre tether, no real-time link
Mid-run correction: None, by design

04Sensors & Mapping

Sensor suite: Dead-reckoning odometry · proximity sensing
Camera: Compact camera — mission-dependent
Mission product: Map and position trail, logged as the unit advances
Energetic material: None — no warhead, no fuze, no self-destruct function

05Materials & Construction

Body / shell: Recycled PET — reclaimed, flaked and dried
Structural resin: Qualified virgin resin, held back only where structural integrity demands it
Tooling: Moulded on Canadian Shield’s own dies
Cost positioning: Attritable-tier — cheap enough to buy and use in numbers

06Signature & Power

Battery: Small single-use-sized cell — sized to the one-way run
Emissions: None — no radio, no GNSS, in any guidance tier
Jamming surface: None — nothing transmitting

07Compliance

Patent status: Patent pending
Export control: Export-controlled — international transfer subject to Canadian government permits; export posture is counsel-first
Classification: Mapper and marker, not a munition — no energetic material of any kind, in any configuration
Boring & tunnelling scope: Badger CS-410 · Aquifer CS-411 — Gopher works passages that already exist

No unit price is published — attritable-tier cost positioning is stated qualitatively. Gopher does not dig or bore: boring and tunnelling hardware is Badger CS-410 and Aquifer CS-411 scope and appears nowhere on this platform.

In the Doctrine

Attritable Is an Economics Word.
Not a Self-Destruct One.

"Attritable" here means exactly one thing: cheap enough, in cost and in a one-way mission profile, to lose without it costing the mission. It does not mean the unit carries a charge, self-destructs, or has any explosive or energetic function. Gopher has none — no warhead, no fuze, no energetic material, anywhere, in any configuration. It is a mapper and a marker, never a strike platform, whether it comes home or not.

The economics run parallel to the Air family's cheap expendable scout tier — the same salvo-depth logic: cheap enough to buy and use in numbers, so a unit lost to bad ground is a line item, not a setback. The recycled-PET body ties that economics directly to the group's sustainable-manufacturing thesis — the same recycled-content discipline the group publishes for its own forward manufacturing cell: recycled feedstock where it is right, qualified resin where structure depends on it.

And it carries the family's central line in its plainest form: send the robot down the hole, not the soldier. Here that means sending a machine cheap enough that no one is ever tempted to send a person in after it.

The Economics

A line item. Not a setback.

Cheap enough to buy and use in numbers, so a unit lost to bad ground is a line item, not a setback — and cheap enough that no one is ever tempted to send a person in after it. The recycled-PET body is what makes that arithmetic work.

Deployment

A One-Way Run, Walked Through.

One run, walked end to end — illustrative of how the crawler is used, not a mission record.

01 · Arrival

Hand-Launch at the Passage Entry

Gopher arrives by hand-launch or simple insertion at the mouth of the passage or void. The preset route is loaded before entry — the mission is planned once, on the surface, with no expectation of mid-run correction. No link check happens because there is no link.

02 · Work

The Route, Run Once

Gopher advances the one-way route on preset guidance alone, logging a map and position trail as it goes — dead-reckoning odometry, proximity sensing, and a camera where the mission calls for one. No real-time control link is needed because none is expected to be needed; the mission was resolved before the unit ever entered the ground.

03 · Terminal State, Not Recovery

It Parks. That's the Plan.

Gopher is not retrieved as standard practice. At the end of its route — or wherever the passage stops it — it parks in place as a designed, findable marker. Recovery, if wanted, is a deliberate, separate operation, never a default expectation. The unit's job ends the moment it stops.

The Underground Family · At a Glance

Seven Platforms. One Split.

Badger and Aquifer make the hole; Ferret, Mole, Muskrat, Gopher and the Farell Pig work holes and passages that already exist. Gopher is the cheapest, most expendable of the six that work existing ground — the platform sent first, or sent instead.

This platform

CS-450 · Attritable tier

Gopher

The cheapest, most expendable of the six that work existing ground — a mapper and marker cheap enough to send and leave.

Download PDF ↓

CS-410 · Makes the hole

Badger

One of the family's two hole-making platforms. Gopher does not dig or bore — Badger does.

Download PDF ↓

CS-411 · Makes the hole

Aquifer

The other half of the family's hole-making pair.

Download PDF ↓

CS-420 · Existing ground

Ferret

Works holes and passages that already exist — the same category of space Gopher maps and marks.

Download PDF ↓

CS-430 · Existing ground

Mole

Another of the six platforms that work existing voids and passages rather than making them.

Download PDF ↓

CS-440 · Existing ground

Muskrat

Works the family's existing-ground side of the split, alongside Ferret and Mole.

Download PDF ↓

CS-460 · Existing ground

Farell Pig

The sixth of the platforms that work holes and passages that already exist.

Download PDF ↓

Proof, Not Promotion

Send the Robot Down the Hole.
Not the Soldier.

If you buy, build, integrate or regulate uncrewed underground systems for Canada or its allies, Gopher is on the table as the attritable tier.

Contact Canadian Shield → Watch the Badger Film → The Underground Family The Fleet

Full Marketing Package

The Rest of the Fleet.

Every Canadian Shield platform has a brochure like this one — same depth, same status discipline, same refusal to publish a number we cannot source. Organized by family below.

Air · 8