AIAA AVIATION 2026: Simulation, Testing, and Aerospace Compute Took Center Stage

Radeus Labs returned from the AIAA AVIATION Forum in San Diego earlier this month with a sharper sense of where aviation is headed. With the event in our own backyard, team members from across engineering, production, finance, and leadership were all able to attend and between them, they covered a lot of ground.

What they found was a deeply technical event: serious aerospace conversations, real prototypes on the floor, strong academic representation, and clear momentum building around simulation, testing, autonomy, AI-enabled workflows, and high-performance compute.

The Big Theme: Faster, Higher-Fidelity Simulation

Radeus Technical Sales Rep Clay Moore saw one clear theme running across the technical sessions and show floor: aerospace teams want faster, more precise ways to simulate, test, and optimize aircraft.

A major part of that conversation was MDAO, or Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization. That includes the many tools and processes used to design, analyze, simulate, and improve aircraft systems. CFD, or Computational Fluid Dynamics, was another major focus, especially as teams look for better ways to model airflow, performance, and design behavior before physical testing.

The bottom line: simulation is becoming more demanding, and aerospace teams need computing systems that can keep up.

GPU Compute Is Becoming a Serious Aerospace Conversation

Radeus Senior Architect Andrew Correnti attended “Higher Speed with Higher Fidelity: GPU Computing’s Role in Modern MDAO,” a session featuring speakers from NVIDIA, nTop, Luminary AI, and Northrop Grumman. The discussion focused on a major shift in aerospace simulation: moving from CPU-heavy workflows toward GPU-accelerated compute.

Andrew’s takeaway was that GPU compute is expensive, but the speed advantage is difficult to ignore. For teams adding AI, simulation, and modern design tools into the mix, performance gains can change how quickly engineering work moves forward. It also creates a practical challenge. Teams need to make the business case, plan for availability, and understand how to bring high-performance compute into their own environments. That is where Radeus Labs can be a valuable partner, especially for teams evaluating on-prem systems, GPU-enabled infrastructure, and long-lifecycle hardware.

Software, Hardware, and Testing All Connected

AIAA AVIATION Forum was not only about simulation software. The team also saw a strong presence from companies focused on physical testing, sensors, data acquisition, acoustics, vibration, and instrumentation.

Clay called out Calspan, Crystal Instruments, Dewesoft, Head Acoustics, and Revel.io as part of that broader testing ecosystem. Head Acoustics was a familiar presence for the Radeus Labs team, and some of the team noted that their sound and acoustic testing demo stood out on the floor.

Dewesoft and Crystal Instruments also fit into the hardware side of the conversation, where aerospace teams are working with real-world sensor data, vibration, sound, and test measurements.

Revel.io caught the team’s attention for its work around dashboards, sensor data, telemetry, and hardware testing environments.

The message across all these conversations was clear: aerospace teams need both advanced simulation and real-world testing, and both depend on reliable compute.

AI Is Showing Up in the Engineering Workflow

Radeus Engineer David Velarde was especially interested in Cosmon, which he described as an AI agent for mechanical engineers. The tool supports drawings, modeling, troubleshooting, and SolidWorks-style workflows, the kind of AI that does real work inside engineering tools.

NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, and the Future of Flight

Some of the most memorable show floor moments came from seeing where advanced aircraft, autonomy, and next-generation flight concepts are already taking shape.

NASA’s X-59 was one of the highlights for David. Built as part of NASA’s Quesst mission, the X-59 is designed to fly at supersonic speed while reducing the traditional sonic boom to a quieter sonic thump. David also noted Lockheed Martin’s 3D-printed aluminum drone, which showed how advanced manufacturing is changing the way aircraft and UAVs can be designed, built, tested, and iterated.

Small UAVs, Launched Effects, and Autonomy

Radeus CEO Juliet Correnti highlighted strong conversations with General Atomics (GA), including continued relationship-building and interest around small form factor drones. She also noted a talk from GA's Director of Launched Effects, Donald Sauder, that focused on small UAVs, including systems like Sparrowhawk. That conversation brought the small UAS trend into sharper focus, pointing to a larger shift toward launched effects, distributed sensing, collaborative autonomy, and more flexible mission capabilities.

The team also saw GA displays connected to Sparrowhawk, A2LE, and MQ-20, with some units representing real prototypes and test systems rather than simple display models.

The broader show floor included Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Wisk, eVTOL concepts, the F-35, and other aircraft and autonomous systems.

Wisk, a fully owned Boeing subsidiary, stood out as an example of how major aerospace companies are investing in electric flight, autonomy, and new approaches to air mobility.

Together, these aircraft, drones, prototypes, and autonomous systems reinforced one of the biggest themes of the event: advanced aviation concepts depend on the simulation, testing, autonomy, AI-enabled workflows, and compute infrastructure that help move systems from concept to real-world use.

Academia Brought a Different Kind of Energy

For Radeus Production Tech Victor Guarneros, this was his first convention focused on aeronautics and astronautics, and one of the most memorable parts was seeing private companies, government, military, and academia in the same environment.

Victor spoke with people from the University of Michigan and the University of Kansas, which sparked a larger conversation about how Radeus Labs can support academic research departments, engineering programs, and labs with computing hardware for simulation, 3D rendering, and technical research.

Radeus CFO Catherine Zhang also saw the event as a learning opportunity from a finance and business perspective. Her focus was less on specs and more on opportunity: what did these companies need, and where did Radeus fit in the process of building it? That lens extended to the academic side of the floor as well, where she connected with university representatives and saw potential for future partnership.

Juliet also connected with a professor from Grossmont College, which is developing one of the first community college aerospace programs in the country in collaboration with SDSU. For a company like Radeus Labs, that kind of pipeline, students getting hands-on aerospace education locally, is exactly the kind of relationship worth cultivating early.

Why AIAA AVIATION Forum Is Worth Attending

AIAA AVIATION Forum 2026 was technical, focused, and full of useful conversations around the questions shaping the next phase of aviation:

• How do teams run higher-fidelity simulations faster?
• How does GPU compute become practical for aerospace programs?
• How can AI support real engineering workflows?
• How do simulation, physical testing, autonomy, and deployment connect?

For Radeus Labs, those are exactly the right conversations to be in.

See Radeus Labs at the July 9 Capitol Hill Modeling Event

Next up, Radeus Labs will be at the July 16 Capitol Hill Modeling Expo in D.C.

For teams thinking through modeling and simulation infrastructure, GPU compute, AI-capable systems, on-prem hardware, autonomy, or long-lifecycle computing support, the Radeus Labs team will be there and ready to talk. Meetings can also be scheduled ahead of the event to discuss technical questions, infrastructure challenges, and mission requirements.

The compute questions shaping the next phase of aviation? Radeus Labs is ready to work through them.