Horizon XIX

The Founding Rover

Horizon XIX was FRoST’s first rover. Built during the 2018-2019 academic year, it was the team’s first attempt at designing and constructing a Mars rover analogue from scratch, and the vehicle that carried FRoST to its debut at the European Rover Challenge in 2019.

Design

The rover was built on a crawler chassis, chosen for its simplicity and robust terrain handling. At 102 kg, Horizon XIX was a heavy machine: the team prioritised structural strength and functional reliability over weight optimisation in this first design. The rover featured a 5-degree-of-freedom robotic arm capable of basic manipulation tasks required by the ERC competition format.

European Rover Challenge 2019

Horizon XIX’s sole competition appearance came at ERC 2019, where FRoST participated for the first time as a team. The results were modest, but the team gained first-hand exposure to the demands of international rover competition, from the technical requirements of autonomous navigation and science tasks to the organisational challenge of transporting and operating a complex robot in the field.

Impact

The lessons from Horizon XIX carried directly into the next rover’s design. The rover’s weight revealed the need for lightweight materials and more efficient structural design. Its arm’s limited dexterity motivated the move to a 6-DOF manipulator for the successor platform. And the competition experience itself gave the team the confidence and direction to begin work on ARES, which would go on to become FRoST’s flagship rover.

Though retired after a single season, Horizon XIX is the rover that started FRoST’s run in Mars rover competitions.