ARES

Overview

ARES, the Advanced Robotic Exploration System, is FRoST’s primary competition rover and the platform that put the team on the international stage. Development began in October 2020 as the successor to the retired Horizon XIX, with the goal of building a lighter, more capable, and more modular rover from the ground up.

Design Philosophy

Where Horizon XIX was a proof of concept, ARES was designed with competition performance and iterability in mind. The team adopted a track-based drive system paired with brushless DC motors, giving ARES reliable traction across the rocky, uneven terrain typical of rover challenges. The chassis is built to be modular, allowing subsystems to be swapped and upgraded between competition seasons without requiring a full redesign.

Manipulator Arm

One of ARES’s standout features is its 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm. Designed and manufactured in-house, the arm enables the rover to perform complex maintenance and science tasks, from operating switches and valves to collecting soil samples.

Continuous Improvement

Early iterations of ARES weighed around 64 kg. Through the introduction of carbon fibre structural components and weight-optimised mounting solutions, the team reduced the rover’s mass to approximately 54 kg. Electronics and software architectures have also been overhauled between seasons, improving reliability and autonomous capabilities.

Legacy

ARES is the platform FRoST used to grow from a university project into a consistently competitive robotics team. The lessons learned through ARES’s design, testing, and competition cycles directly inform the development of its successor, EROS.