Liaison: Ted Allen and Miguel Grajeda

The City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering maintains over 7,500 miles of sidewalks. When a segment of sidewalk does not settle evenly or has been raised up by tree-root growth, the sidewalk becomes uneven. This can create pedestrian hazards. In addition, the City is obligated to ensure that its sidewalks conform to Federal ADA standards, which limit the extent to which a sidewalk may slope.

It is anticipated that this will be a multi-year project. The overall goal is the development of an unpowered but rollable cart-like vehicle with capabilities that include, measuring sidewalk slope, taking pictures of locations where the sidewalk violates the ADA standards, taking pictures of trees along the sidewalk parkway to enable City personal to anticipate possible problems, etc. 

Once collected, the data is to be uploaded to City servers so that it can be examined by relevant personnel. This involves developing a web app that includes, some data visualization capabilities.

It should be possible for personnel with limited training and technical abilities to operate the cart, i.e., to push/pull it over the sidewalk and turn it on and off. (Currently trained engineers are required for surveying City sidewalks.)

During this first year, we explored a number of options related to the development of a digital platform to which sensors and other devices might be attached. We examined a number of sensors and algorithms for measuring sidewalk slope. We developed a mechanism to synchronize images taken from the cart with slope data so that city personnel can see the cause of slope problems.

Future teams are expected to build on this year's work.

Group Meeting Time: Monday - Wednesday: 3:00pm - 5:30pm
Advisor Meeting Time: Friday: 3:00pm - 4:00pm