SAN MATEO, Calif. - Aircraft developer Rune Aero in Atlanta sought to reduce early design costs as it developed its uncrewed aircraft by utilizing an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered virtual wind tunnel and digital twin technology. They found their solution from Luminary Cloud in San Mateo, Calif.
The company, founded in 2023, is developing an autonomous cargo aircraft for the middle-mile air freight market. By leveraging interactive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations from Luminary Cloud and NVIDIA’s Omniverse Blueprint digital twin technology, Rune Aero engineers can assess aerodynamic effects in real time, shortening the design process.
Digital twins - virtual replicas of physical systems - allow engineers to simulate and analyze aircraft performance under real-world conditions without physical testing. Rune Aero’s system integrates Luminary Cloud’s GPU-accelerated CFD solvers, NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries, and AI-driven PhysicsNeMo models to create high-fidelity aerodynamic simulations. These digital environments provide immediate feedback on design modifications, reducing reliance on costly wind tunnel tests.
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Virtual environments
"At the early stages of aircraft development, getting fast, accurate, and cost-effective design feedback is essential," said Nadine Auda, Rune Aero co-founder. "Luminary's virtual wind tunnel allows Rune Aero to test configurations earlier in the process, reducing our early development costs by over 80% compared to traditional wind tunnels and enabling faster, smarter design decisions."
"AI physics models are essential for real-time interactive engineering analysis and design but require tremendous amounts of data," said Tim Costa, senior director of CAE EDA and Quantum at NVIDIA. "Luminary Cloud’s accelerated CFD solver allows customers to generate the high-fidelity data needed to train the underlying AI physics model in NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo in a matter of hours."
By shifting wind tunnel testing to an early-stage virtual environment, Rune Aero aims to lower technical risks, optimize aerodynamics, and reduce operating costs for cargo operators by 70%.
