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[FEATURE] Payload Tracking (DJI Enterprise Payloads) #136

@benji2182

Description

@benji2182

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When working with DJI enterprise drones (M300 / M350), the payload itself is often the most important piece of equipment — for example Zenmuse L2, P1, H20T, etc.

Right now Open DroneLog tracks drones and batteries well, but there is no way to track which payload was used for a flight.

DJI logs already contain this information. Enterprise flight logs include a payload/camera serial number, typically in fields like:

RECOVER.cameraSerial
DETAILS.cameraSerial

Example value from a real log:

6U3DM8A001231Q

That serial stays consistent for the payload used during the flight, so it could be used to track payload usage and history.

This would make it possible to see things like:

  • total flights per payload
  • total airtime per payload
  • flight history for a specific payload
  • filtering flights by payload

This is especially useful for operators running multiple payloads across the same aircraft.

Which area of the app does this relate to?

  • Flight log importing / parsing
  • Overview dashboard / statistics
  • Flight list (filtering, searching, sorting)
  • Flight map / 3D path visualization
  • Telemetry charts
  • Battery health insights
  • Data export (CSV, JSON, GPX, KML)
  • Settings / configuration
  • Docker / web deployment
  • Desktop app
  • Other (equipment / asset tracking)

Describe the solution you'd like
Add payload tracking based on the payload serial number already present in DJI flight logs.

Implementation could follow the same pattern already used for batteries and aircraft.

When importing a DJI log:

  1. Extract payload serial from the log

RECOVER.cameraSerial
DETAILS.cameraSerial

  1. Store this value in the flights table:

payload_serial

  1. Maintain a payload registry table:

payloads
payload_serial (primary key)
payload_model
payload_name
notes

  1. Allow users to assign a friendly name/model to a payload serial.

Example:

Serial: 6U3DM8A001231Q
Model: Zenmuse L2
Name: Zenmuse L2

Then flights can automatically show the payload used.

Example flight entry:

Date: 2025-10-16
Aircraft: M350 RTK
Payload: Zenmuse L2
Serial: 6U3DM8A001231Q
Duration: 27m

UI improvements could include:

  • Payload column in flight list
  • Payload filter for flights
  • Payload usage statistics
  • Payload equipment page (similar to batteries)

Example metrics:

Payload: Zenmuse L2
Serial: 6U3DM8A001231Q

Flights: 124
Total Airtime: 38h 12m
Last Used: 2026-03-02

Describe alternatives you've considered
The alternative is manually tracking payload usage outside the system (spreadsheets, notes, etc.), which isn’t ideal.

Another option would be trying to detect payload model names directly from logs, but DJI logs often only contain the serial number, not the model name. Because of that, using the serial as the main identifier is more reliable.

Once the serial is known, the model/name can be added as metadata.

Drone model(s)
This applies mainly to DJI enterprise aircraft, for example:

  • Matrice 300 RTK
  • Matrice 350 RTK
  • Matrice 400 RTK

Payloads include:

  • Zenmuse L2
  • Zenmuse L1
  • Zenmuse P1
  • Zenmuse H20 / H20T
  • Zenmuse H30 / H30T

But the same approach should work for any DJI logs that include cameraSerial.

Additional context
The payload serial already appears in parsed DJI logs. Example fields:

RECOVER.cameraSerial
DETAILS.cameraSerial

Because the serial is consistent per payload, it can be used as the primary identifier for tracking payload usage across flights.

Happy to help test with enterprise flight logs if needed.

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