Integration of Forensic Artifacts from Android-based Drone Controllers into Android Logs Events and Protobuf Parser

The rapid development of drone technology has revolutionized various sectors, including mapping, agriculture, tourism, and even warfare. However, on the other hand, this expansion has also facilitated the misuse of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for illegal activities that threaten public safety and national security. Digital forensic investigations face significant challenges when drones are damaged or destroyed. This research addresses this critical gap by focusing on the forensic analysis of Android mobile controllers used in DJI drones, which dominate the commercial market. We developed a new opensource parser integrated into the Android Logs Events and Protobuf Parser (ALEAPP) platform. This parser is designed to decode and extract flight data from.DAT and.TXT log files. Our comprehensive analysis covers various DJI drone models (Mavic 2, Mavic 2 Enterprise, Mavic Air, Mavic Pro, Phantom 3, Phantom 4, and Phantom 4 Pro), which provide results in the form of flight timestamps and GPS coordinates. This contributes to forensic investigations involving UAV technology.