FRoST Wins Maintenance Award at European Rover Challenge 2025
ERC 2025: FRoST Takes the Maintenance Award
Poland – August 2025. The Frankfurt Robotics Science Team (FRoST) has claimed the Best Team in Maintenance special award at the European Rover Challenge 2025. Competing with their rover EROS against some of the strongest university rover teams in the world, FRoST delivered a standout performance in the maintenance task that the ERC jury singled out for recognition.
The Maintenance Task
The ERC maintenance task challenges teams to operate their rover’s robotic arm to perform a series of simulated repair and service operations on a realistic panel — manipulating connectors, switches, and fittings under time pressure. It is one of the most demanding and technically precise tasks in the competition, rewarding both the mechanical accuracy of the rover’s manipulator and the skill of the operators behind it.
FRoST’s performance in the maintenance task demonstrated the reliability and precision that the team has built into EROS’s robotic arm. The arm handled every procedure cleanly, and the team’s coordinated operations approach kept execution tight throughout the task window.
A Hard-Won Result
The maintenance award carries particular significance for FRoST. The team first won the Best Team in Maintenance ON-SITE award at ERC 2022 — with the predecessor rover ARES.
Competition Context
ERC 2025 brought together an international field of university teams competing across navigation, science, equipment servicing, and presentation tasks. FRoST competed across almost all categories, with the maintenance performance standing out as the team’s strongest result.