# A terrain treadmill to study animal locomotion through large obstacles

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.07854 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07854/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [BeeWhere: Segmenting Bumble Bee Colonies to Quantify Behavioral Effects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.03051/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A major challenge to understanding locomotion in complex 3-D terrain with large obstacles is to create tools for controlled, systematic lab experiments. Existing terrain arenas only allow observations at small spatiotemporal scales (~10 body length, ~10 stride cycles). Here, we create a terrain treadmill to enable high-resolution observations of animal locomotion through large obstacles over large spatiotemporal scales. An animal moves through modular obstacles on an inner sphere, while a rigidly-attached, concentric, transparent outer sphere rotated with the opposite velocity via closed-loop feedback to keep the animal on top. During sustained locomotion, a discoid cockroach moved through pillar obstacles for 25 minutes (≈2500 strides) over 67 m (≈1500 body lengths), and was contained within a radius of 4 cm (0.9 body length) for 83% of the duration, even at speeds of up to 10 body length/s. The treadmill enabled observation of diverse locomotor behaviors and quantification of animal-obstacle interaction.