BLOG – Artur learned about aerial surveillance in our Arcadis office in Qatar

Quest is an international transfer program which connects Arcadians from all over the world. Quest is sponsored by the Lovinklaan Foundation. Every week we are highlighting one of the stories our employees who went on an exchange. In this blogpost we cover the Quest story of Artur Iro Rodrigues who traveled from São Paulo, Brazil to Doha, Qatar.

Why did I apply for a Quest

My name is Artur Iro Rodrigues and this winter I went on a Quest to Doha, Qatar. The reasons behind my Quest was that I wanted to improve my knowledge on drones and 3D models. Arcadis Qatar has the biggest drone project and a great team working on it led by Paul Kawuma, the office’s Innovation and Infrastructure BIM manager. It certainly served as a great opportunity to learn more on subject.

“During my Quest I was greeted by an incredible team that provided me with professional and cultural growth.

Highlight of my quest experience

Although all Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) were grounded in the state of Qatar at the time when I did my Quest, the Arcadis team was able to submit an application to fly within a private airspace. This was allowed, as the Qatar RC Sports Center is a privately-owned airspace which allows civilians to operate all forms of unmanned aerial vehicles, quad-copters and fixed-winged aircraft. It turned out to be a perfect opportunity for me to get out into the field, to test the workflows, and to showcase their capabilities.

The best part of my Quest was to work with a team that was excited to share their knowledge with me while introducing me to their cultures. In return, I was able to contribute a little by sharing my own knowledge in planning field activities, which hopefully helped improve the Arcadis Qatar team work as well. Throughout my Quest the team made sure I had a full itinerary, during which they taught me the theoretical and practical part of aerial surveys using the Site Scan system and tools for data processing. In addition, I learned the basic steps in how to build applications through PowerApps to maximize the performance of some tasks.

 

 

 

 

 Aerial drone shot

Learnings and experiences

Although I am currently not an UAV operator, during my Quest I was able to learn several ways to apply the aerial survey on the projects I work on. With the knowledge I acquired, I organised some meetings and lectures to inform others about benefits of using of UAV`s in environmental and civil engineering projects back in my own office in São Paulo, Brazil.

Because of the experience I had, I would really encourage others to do it as well. If you are going on a Quest, I recommend you to prepare a detailed schedule of activities and goals to be achieved. I found having a detailed planning to be key to the success of my Quest.

The international transfer program Quest, which connects Arcadians from all over the world, is sponsored by the Lovinklaan Foundation.

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