Relay Chain · CS-710 · Industrial Series Support System

CARRY THE SIGNAL
TO WHERE THE WORK IS

Name: Relay Chain CS-710
Brand: Canadian Shield
SKU: CS-710

A deployable chain of relay nodes — command, telemetry and position augmentation for civil fleets working past the edge of the network.

Anchor · Guy · Raise · Link · Vote

Contact Canadian Shield → Watch the Industrial Film Back to Industrial

Illustrative scene — not a certified performance record. Not an offer.

2use casesGoverning use cases stated by name — no-line-of-sight valley, no-infrastructure pasture

4methodsDeployment methods for a node — hand-carry, vehicle, Cargo Mover sling-placed, or dropped

3receiversGNSS receivers in the site's navigation vote baseline

0work doneWork performed by the chain itself — its whole job is keeping other machines' links alive

What It Is

The Spine the Fleet
Doesn't Carry Itself.

The Relay Chain is a deployable chain of packable relay nodes: anchor a mast, raise an antenna, and a work zone that had no command link, no telemetry path and no GNSS correction now has one. It is a support system, not a vehicle — it does no work of its own. It exists so the machines that do the work stay connected while they do it.

Two use cases set the design honestly, stated plainly rather than smoothed over: a helicopter logging operation in a steep, deeply-incised coastal valley, where line of sight to any fixed station simply does not exist from the draw; and a remote prairie pasture being sprayed, where the terrain is flat but the problem is that there is no infrastructure at all over a very large working area. One case is about geometry; the other is about absence. The chain has to answer both.

It sits in the Industrial line's ground-infrastructure block alongside the Self-Charging Dock (CS-700) — the two products that don't do the fleet's work but make the fleet's work possible. The dock buys back turnaround; the chain buys back the link. Its function is a connectivity spine: command and telemetry relay, GNSS position augmentation, and data backhaul, so a machine's control link and navigation do not depend on infrastructure that was never built where the job is.

source of record — CSH-DWG-RELAY-001 ground-infrastructure block — with the CS-700 Self-Charging Dock

The Idea

Every other machine on this line does the work. This one lets the others keep doing it.

A sprayer, a seeder, a dredger — each earns its keep on the job. The Relay Chain earns nothing on its own; it is judged entirely by whether the fleet stays linked in the one place infrastructure never reaches. That is a different kind of product, and it is priced and proven as one.

2Governing use cases stated by name — a no-line-of-sight coastal valley and a no-infrastructure prairie pasture

4Deployment methods for a node — hand-carry, vehicle, Cargo Mover sling-placed, or dropped

0Work performed by the chain itself — its entire job is keeping other machines' links alive

How It Works

One Packable Node — A Chain That Can Choose Its Shape.

01 The Signature Mechanism · Node & Chain Topology

ONE PACKABLE NODE — A CHAIN THAT CAN CHOOSE ITS SHAPE

Every node is the same packable unit: a sectional mast carrying an antenna, a solar-fed power module, a GNSS positioning bay, and a radio, all planted on an anchor-and-guy kit sized to the ground it stands on. Erect one, and it relays. Erect a line of them, and they form a chain.

The chain can be built two ways, and the choice is stated as an open design fork rather than a settled answer neither engineering study has earned. Wired in a line — a linear chain — every node and every link must hold, and losing one severs everything downstream. Wired with alternate paths — a mesh — the chain can route around a lost node, but only where a second geometric path actually exists. On a narrow incised coastal valley, that is a real question, not a marketing one: there may be exactly one ridge line with the sight lines a link needs, and no amount of engineering invents a second one where the terrain doesn't offer it.

When a link is under strain, the shed order is design intent, not a frozen specification: data backhaul goes first, position augmentation second, and command and telemetry relay last — the machine's command link is built to be the last thing the chain gives up.

topology — linear vs mesh, an open design fork loss-of-link shed order — design intent, not yet a specification

CS-710 · node anatomy + chain topology fork — linear vs mesh

1 · AnchorStakes, rock anchor or ballast set first — substrate governs the choice.

2 · GuyThe guy set goes on before the mast is loaded, not after.

3 · RaiseThe mast comes up from the lee side, into the anchored guys.

4 · LinkRadio and antenna come alive; the node joins the chain.

5 · VoteGNSS positioning bay joins the multi-receiver vote and relays corrections.

CS-710 · RELAY CHAIN Industrial Series — Ground Infrastructure

Capabilities & Specifications

The Numbers We're Willing
to Print, and the Ones We're Not.

Figures below are drawn from the Relay Chain engineering drawing package (CSH-DWG-RELAY-001).

01Dimensions & Construction

Designation

CS-710 · Relay Chain — Industrial Series, ground-infrastructure block, with the CS-700 Self-Charging Dock

Node architecture

Sectional mast · antenna · radio module(s) · GNSS/positioning bay · power module · anchor & guy kit · pack frame — one packable unit, common across every node

Anchor & guy kit

Soil stakes · rock anchors · dead-weight ballast · guy set — substrate varies within one job; ballast trades against carry mass

02Performance

Erection sequence

Anchor first · guy before raising · raise from the lee side — one-person erection is the target constraint

Loss-of-link shed order

Data backhaul first · position augmentation second · C2/telemetry last — design intent, not yet a frozen specification

03Network & Power

Role

Deployable connectivity spine — C2/telemetry relay, GNSS position augmentation, data backhaul — serving civil fleet vehicles working beyond fixed infrastructure

Radio

Single vs dual dissimilar radios — node-level redundancy, an open design fork

Positioning

RTK-capable GNSS per node · every node relays corrections — the multi-receiver vote is the site's navigation baseline

Dissimilar nav source

Terrestrial-ranging module — volume reservation only; unproven at this stage and never claimed delivered

Power

Battery + solar array; generator port reserved — battery+solar vs small generator is an open design fork; Alberta-winter cold-soak is the sizing case

Chain topology

Linear (series) or mesh (redundant paths) — an open design fork; a mesh reroute is only real where a second geometric path exists

Control & navigation

Commercial/licensed radio C2 + GNSS — permitted on this surface civil line, the chain's entire function, stated as a feature

Spectrum

Radio operation is licensed by ISED in Canada. Band, power and emission class are open; no classification or clearance is claimed.

04Deployment

Deployment methods

Hand-carry (baseline) · vehicle-placed · Cargo Mover CS-600 sling-placed · dropped — site-dependent; dropped placement is speculative, not baseline

Battery replenishment

One possible path — packs cycled through the CS-700 dock magazine; a cross-package idea under discussion, not a claim

05Materials & Construction

Recovery

Every placement logged · recovery mirrors placement · abandonment is a reportable event — not an option, a binding design rule

06Signature & Power

Surface boundary

The chain is a surface line product only — it never follows the fleet underground, because the no-radio-underground doctrine forbids it there, without exception

07Compliance

Standing

Nothing on this page is a specification, offer, commitment or price. Range, node spacing, node count, battery life and availability depend on the governing variables stated below — no headline figure is published without them.

Range, Spacing & Battery Life — the Governing Rule

We do not publish a headline link-range, node-spacing, node-count or battery-life figure, because none of them is a fixed property of this machine. They are outputs of variables that change site to site — and a range claim without those variables attached would be a number we could not stand behind, so we decline to make one. What we will state is the shape of the answer: geometry and cold set the ceiling before the radio ever does.

Terrain profile & line-of-sight availability Frequency & antenna, once spectrum is set Anchoring substrate at each site Ambient temperature — cold-soak, winter case Topology choice — linear vs mesh Crew or machine access for placement

In the Doctrine

Comms Infrastructure
Is Still Manufacturing.

Canadian Shield's thesis is that manufacturing is the decisive capability. The Relay Chain advances that thesis from the infrastructure end of the Industrial line: the same packable-structure discipline, the same materials canon and the same sovereign Canadian production base, pointed at keeping a civil fleet connected instead of at doing the fleet's work directly.

The Industrial line's own navigation doctrine already leans on this product by name. The baseline three-receiver GNSS vote is backed by dissimilar sources for the faults a vote alone can't catch — inertial, barometric, optical, and terrestrial ranging carried by a relay chain. That fourth leg is the Relay Chain's own terrestrial-ranging module: reserved volume today, an open development item, never claimed as a delivered feature until it is proven.

And the estate's radio boundary runs through this product directly, not around it. The no-radio rule governs the defence, underground and tethered platforms without exception — but the Industrial line is the surface civil exception where radio and GNSS are permitted, and the Relay Chain's entire reason to exist is that permission: it is a radio relay carrying GNSS correction, openly, because a logging valley and a prairie pasture are not jammed battlespaces and we do not build for them like they are. The boundary also runs the other way without exception: the chain is a surface line only. It never follows the fleet underground, because the doctrine forbids radio there — full stop, no product-specific carve-out.

radio & GNSS permitted — this line only, the chain's whole function surface only — never underground, per doctrine, no exceptions

One Spine, Two Missions

The valley needs geometry. The pasture needs presence.

A coastal logging draw and a prairie quarter-section fail for opposite reasons — one has terrain in the way, the other has nothing at all. The same packable node answers both, because the node doesn't assume a reason; it just plants a link where the machine needs one.

3GNSS receivers in the site's navigation vote baseline, backed by dissimilar sources including this chain

1Ground-infrastructure block shared with the CS-700 Self-Charging Dock — infrastructure, not fleet

0Exceptions to the no-radio-underground rule — surface only, always

On the Ridge

Nothing Stays Behind
When the Job Is Done.

A Relay Chain job is a loop, not an installation: nodes go up for a working window, hold the fleet's link while the work happens, and come home when it's finished. Here is that loop, end to end.

1 · Deploy

The Chain Goes Up

Nodes reach their positions by whichever method the terrain allows: hand-carried up a coastal ridge as the slow, cheap baseline; driven in where a road or trail exists; or slung in by a Cargo Mover (CS-600) when a spot needs exact placement and nothing else can reach it. Each node is then anchored first, guyed before it is loaded, and raised from the lee side.

The bootstrap problem, stated honestly: a placing machine may need a link before the chain it's building exists — sequencing that sortie is still an open operational question.
Every method is site-dependent: there is no single answer for how a node gets to its ridge.

2 · Sustain

The Mesh Holds the Job

Once up, the chain carries the fleet's command link, telemetry and GNSS corrections for the working window. If a link comes under strain, data backhaul sheds first and command stays up longest — by design intent. We do not publish an uptime percentage: availability above 100% is not a meaningful figure, and even high availability comes from redundancy and graceful degradation, never from a claim.

Linear chains are honestly fragile: every added node multiplies the chance something along the line fails.
Redundant paths reverse that: only where the ground actually offers a second route.

3 · Recover

The Ridge Is Left As Found

At the end of the working window, recovery mirrors placement: hand-carried nodes walk out, vehicle-placed nodes drive out, sling-placed nodes fly out. Every placement was logged — position and anchor type — so nothing is guessed at on the way back. Abandonment is a reportable event, never a shortcut.

What leaves: every node, every anchor kit, every pack frame.
What's proven: the log matches the recovery, node for node.

Scenario illustrates the design intent of the operating loop. Anchoring holding capacity by substrate, mast erection in wind, and node energy performance through a cold-soak winter are exactly what the field test program exists to measure.

Ground Infrastructure, Not Fleet

The Chain's Nearest Relations.

The Relay Chain sits beside the Self-Charging Dock in the Industrial line's ground-infrastructure block, and serves the fleet vehicles that draw on both.

This system

CS-710 · Industrial

Relay Chain

A deployable chain of relay nodes — command, telemetry and position augmentation for civil fleets working past the edge of the network.

Download PDF ↓

CS-700 · Industrial

Self-Charging Dock

A docking and replenishment station that lets a working fleet return, recharge and redeploy without a hand touching it.

Download PDF ↓

CS-600 · Industrial

Cargo Mover

An uncrewed VTOL cargo family — four sizes of the same machine, from toolbox to bulk lift.

Download PDF ↓

CS-C001 · Industrial

Fibre Spool Line

Guidance-fibre consumable cassettes — a physical tether option, alongside or instead of radio.

Download PDF ↓

The Ground-Infrastructure Block

The Work Site Doesn't Come With a Signal.
Now It Can Bring One.

If your fleet works past the edge of the network — a logging valley with no line of sight, a pasture with no towers, a corridor with no infrastructure along it — the conversation starts with where your machines lose their link, and where a chain would hold it.

Contact Canadian Shield → Watch the Industrial Film → The Industrial Line 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