Striatech's InsectBall, developed by Hansjürgen Dahmen at the University of Tübingen, is an air-cushioned treadmill with robust design. It is light-weight and portable. It can be used indoors in the lab, but just as easily in the field. This allows studying insect navigation and locomotion in their natural habitat.
Extremely light-weight Styrofoam ball allows the animal to perform locomotion with natural acceleration, deceleration and orienting. Improved tethering allows natural posture and full degree of motion.
Easy to transport, easy to set up: use in the natural habitat of your research model.
Different sizes available for different research organisms: Drosophila, desert ants, bull ants, bees, cockroaches, locusts, etc.
Open-loop: Animal orientation is fixed, its rotation is reflected as rotation of the ball. Can be combined with equipment like air puffs, olfactory cues, visual stimuli, simultaneous physiological recordings, etc.
Closed-loop: The animal can freely rotate around its yaw axis, and react in a natural way to environmental cues.
Material
Hollow Styrofoam ball
Size
Adjusted to experimental animal. Smallest version: diameter 5 cm, weight: 0.2 g
Inertia
Mass and moment of inertia of trackball is adapted to animal, such that the animal has to exert the same force to move the floating ball as to walk normally
Sensors
Two optical sensors
Data rate
250 Hz
Ball cup
Precision engineered for smooth motion
Construction
Sturdy and portable
This will contain the slide number
The light-weight and robust InsectBall can be set up in the animals natural habitat. Seen here is a Cataglyphis desert ants.
Image taken from Dahmen et al, JEB 2017
Degrees of freedom of animal movement. Animal is tethered on a stick that can move vertically, which is important to ensure natural locomotion.
Image taken from Dahmen et al, JEB 2017
Extremely light-weight Styrofoam ball allows the animal to perform locomotion with natural acceleration, deceleration and orienting. Improved tethering allows natural posture and full degree of motion.
Easy to transport, easy to set up: use in the natural habitat of your research model.
Different sizes available for different research organisms: Drosophila, desert ants, bull ants, bees, cockroaches, locusts, etc.
Open-loop: Animal orientation is fixed, its rotation is reflected as rotation of the ball. Can be combined with equipment like air puffs, olfactory cues, visual stimuli, simultaneous physiological recordings, etc.
Closed-loop: The animal can freely rotate around its yaw axis, and react in a natural way to environmental cues.
Material
Hollow Styrofoam ball
Size
Adjusted to experimental animal. Smallest version: diameter 5 cm, weight: 0.2 g
Inertia
Mass and moment of inertia of trackball is adapted to animal, such that the animal has to exert the same force to move the floating ball as to walk normally
Sensors
Two optical sensors
Data rate
250 Hz
Ball cup
Precision engineered for smooth motion
Construction
Sturdy and portable
This will contain the slide number
The light-weight and robust InsectBall can be set up in the animals natural habitat. Seen here is a Cataglyphis desert ants.
Image taken from Dahmen et al, JEB 2017
Degrees of freedom of animal movement. Animal is tethered on a stick that can move vertically, which is important to ensure natural locomotion.
Image taken from Dahmen et al, JEB 2017
