Sugarcube 6
Technical specifications
Military UAV range — up to 15 km
Commercial UAV range — 1–5 km (DJI Mavic class)
FAST SCAN bands — 400–1020 MHz · 1.1–1.3 · 2.3–2.6 · 5.75–5.9 GHz
SCAN ALL range — 100 MHz – 6 GHz
Dimensions (no antennas) — 79 × 122 × 36 mm
Weight — 200 g
Power — 18650 cell or USB
Battery life — 6–12 hours
Construction — MJF nylon
Software — ATAK / GoTAK
Compliance — NDAA compliant
Capabilities
Military & commercial detection — identifies ZALA, Lancet, Orlan, Shahed and every DJI platform.
RDF on FPV drones — live positions and line of bearing rendered inside ATAK.
Dual scan modes — FAST SCAN locks the common UAS bands; SCAN ALL sweeps 100 MHz–6 GHz.
Dynamic alerting — vibration, sound and LED fire the instant a UAS is detected, out to 15 km.
ATAK enabled — the plugin streams live detections onto the TAK network for shared situational awareness.
Edge AI extrapolation — low-power onboard AI classifies likely drone types from captured signals.
Standalone operation — powers on and detects immediately, no host required.
In the box
Sugarcube 6 detector in MJF nylon housing · full antenna set (sub-GHz through 5.8 GHz) · USB-C cable · quick-start card. GoTAK Sugarcube ATAK plugin included — English and Ukrainian interface, ATAK 5.2 or newer. 18650 cell not included in international shipments.
Sugarcube 6 in ATAK
Not a beeping box
in somebody's pouch.
An RF detector that chirps in a pouch tells one person something is airborne. The GoTAK plugin puts every classified detection on the ATAK map — with band, bearing, signal strength and an IFF call — and pushes it to every other operator on the net.
Plugin included with every unit. ATAK 5.2+ · English and Ukrainian.
Buy Sugarcube 6 →Why Sugarcube 6
Some drones broadcast an identity. The ones you need to worry about do not. What none of them can avoid is transmitting: video down, control up, from the moment they leave the ground. Sugarcube 6 listens across 100 MHz to 6 GHz, names the airframe, calls the bearing, and puts it on every screen on the net. It ^never answers back^.
Military UAV detection range
Spectrum swept, every cycle
Units fielded by the Ukrainian Armed Forces
Transmitted — ever. Passive RX-only.
The detection chain
From first key-up
to the whole net.
Standalone
Powers on and detects.
No host, no pairing, no calibration. Sugarcube 6 runs 6–12 hours on a single 18650 cell and starts detecting the moment it powers up. The ATAK link is an upgrade, not a dependency.
One detector, three ways
Three ways
to run Sugarcube.
The same detection core — full-spectrum sweep, edge classification, bearing and alerting — however the mission is set up.
Carry it and watch it. Onboard display, keypad and a three-stage red/amber/green threat indicator give you scan mode, signal strength and battery with nothing else in the loop — and nothing else to fail.
USB OTG into any Android EUD. Detections become map markers, chat and alerts for the whole net, logged to an on-device database and exportable to CSV for the after-action.
Three or more detectors reporting the same emitter pool their readings and solve for its position on-device — or against a self-hosted terrain-aware solver you run yourself.
Choose your detector
Two sensors.
Two halves of the sky.
RIDAR-FM reads Remote ID — who is flying, and where the pilot is standing. Sugarcube 6 reads the raw spectrum, including everything that never broadcasts Remote ID at all. Most teams end up carrying both.
| Remote ID · RF intel RIDAR-FM | Full-spectrum RF Sugarcube 6 This page | |
|---|---|---|
| What it listens to | RIDAR-FM Remote ID broadcasts over WiFi and Bluetooth, plus BLE and WiFi emitters. | Sugarcube 6 Raw RF from 100 MHz to 6 GHz — analog and digital, whatever is transmitting. |
| FPV and home-built drones | RIDAR-FM No — they broadcast no Remote ID to read. | Sugarcube 6 Yes — they still have to transmit video and control. |
| Military UAVs (ZALA, Lancet, Orlan, Shahed) | RIDAR-FM No. | Sugarcube 6 Yes — out to 15 km. |
| Locating the pilot | RIDAR-FM Yes — operator position comes inside the Remote ID broadcast. | Sugarcube 6 No — line of bearing to the emitter instead. |
| Serial and operator ID | RIDAR-FM Yes — the full Remote ID identity, with spoof scoring. | Sugarcube 6 No — airframe classification and confidence instead. |
| Runs without a phone | RIDAR-FM No — powered by and paired to an Android EUD. | Sugarcube 6 Yes — own screen, keypad, annunciators and battery. |
| Price | RIDAR-FM From $700 | Sugarcube 6 $4,000 |
Different physics, one map. Carry both and very little gets through.
See the RIDAR-FM (Remote ID) →FAQ
The questions
operators ask first.
Full documentation in the GoTAK knowledge base. Community support on Discord. Procurement support direct from sales.
What do I need to run Sugarcube 6?+
Nothing. It is a complete detector — display, keypad, antennas, annunciators and an 18650 cell — and it starts detecting the moment you power it on. To put detections on a shared map, connect it over USB OTG to an Android EUD running ATAK 5.2 or newer; the GoTAK Sugarcube plugin is included and the interface ships in English and Ukrainian.
Does it transmit or jam anything?+
No. Sugarcube 6 only listens. It never transmits, jams or interferes, which keeps it quiet, undetectable and legal to operate where active counter-drone equipment is not.
What does it catch that a Remote ID sensor misses?+
Everything that does not broadcast Remote ID — which is most of what actually threatens a unit. Home-built and racing FPV airframes, analog video links, and military UAVs like ZALA, Lancet, Orlan and Shahed carry no Remote ID at all. Sugarcube 6 detects the transmission itself rather than a compliance broadcast, so it sees them. The trade is that it reports a bearing and a classification, not a serial number or the pilot's position — for those, pair it with RIDAR-FM.
How does the ATAK integration work?+
The plugin owns the serial link to the detector over USB OTG at a configurable baud rate, and reports device name and firmware version on connect. Each detection arrives as a structured record — classification, RSSI, frequency and timestamp — and is placed on the map with military symbology at your reporting position. Chat dispatch and alert dispatch are individually toggleable, so a training range does not flood the net.
Does it work offline?+
Completely. There is no server, no cloud and no reachback anywhere in the chain — classification runs on the detector, and detections travel over the TAK bearer your team already uses. Even the multi-sensor position solve runs on the EUD itself.
How far will it actually detect?+
Up to 15 km on long-range military UAVs and 1–5 km on commercial platforms in the DJI Mavic class. Real range depends on the emitter's transmit power, the band, terrain and how much RF noise is around you — line of sight from high ground gets you the top of that envelope, dense urban clutter takes a bite out of it.
Can several detectors locate the emitter, not just bear to it?+
Yes. Readings of the same emitter from multiple detectors — each with its own GPS position — are pooled and solved on-device for an emitter fix. Localisation depends on spatial separation, so three or more units in a triangle give a far better answer than a line of them. A self-hosted terrain-aware propagation solver can be pointed at the same detection stream for a higher-fidelity result.
Is it NDAA compliant, and is there a record for the after-action?+
Yes on both. Sugarcube 6 is NDAA compliant. Every detection writes to a local database with drone and device identifiers, coordinates, timestamp, classification, RSSI and frequency, and the whole log exports to CSV — treat it as collected data and feed it into pattern-of-life analysis, not as debug output.
More questions? Ask on Discord or email sales@getgotak.com.
GoTAK Discord →SUGARCUBE 6 · DEVELOPED WITH ARGUS INDUSTRIAL
Hear it key up. Before you hear it.
Full-spectrum RF detection from 100 MHz to 6 GHz — FPV, commercial and military — annunciated on the device and shared to every screen on your net. It never transmits a thing.
$4,000 · NDAA compliant · TRL-9, combat-proven