Aero NDT 2026

As AI/ML moves into structural inspection and monitoring, the aviation industry faces a fundamental question: What does it take to trust a learned system in a certified, safety-critical domain? This Part 1, delivered in a tutorial style by invited speakers, lays out the foundations for elaborating on that question. It introduces the essential AI/ML concepts, the governing standards, and the certification framework that make reliable, trustworthy AI/ML-based structural inspection possible. This part will be structured as follows:

• Introduction: AI/ML Certification Roadmaps and their Implications
  Speaker: t.b.c. (Collins Aerospace)
• Relevant Standards and Gap Analysis
  Speaker: Matthias Buderath (formerly Airbus now Maintell.IQ Consulting)
• Learning Assurance, Training Data, and the Assurance Process
  Speaker: t.b.c.
• ML-Enabled Advisory Functions for Current NDT / SHM and Associated Certification Challenges
  Speaker: t.b.c.
• ML-Based Model Development, Assurance Process, and Certification
  Speaker: t.b.c.
• Operational Design Domain (ODD): Scope and Required Considerations
  Speaker: t.b.c.

This part of this topical track builds on the foundations laid in Part 1, turning to real-world technology and experience with AI/ML in aerospace inspection and structural health monitoring (SHM). Researchers, practitioners, and regulators working across this field are invited to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations. Contributions may address but are not limited to the following topics:

• Procedures: Approaches to defining, documenting, and executing AI/ML-based inspection or monitoring procedures
• Training Data, including POD and PFA: Data sourcing, curation, and the demonstration of detection performance for learned systems
• Validation & Verification: Methods for establishing confidence in AI/ML-based inspection and monitoring systems
• Applications, including fleet-level evidence: Deployment experience and the accumulation of operational evidence over time
• Human-Machine Interface: The design and role of the interface between AI/ML systems and human operators or decision-makers
• Standards and Regulations: Experience applying, interpreting, or contributing to the regulatory and standards landscape.

These topics are intended as a guidance rather than a fixed set. Submissions that address related challenges in bringing AI/ML into reliable, certifiable aerospace inspection are equally welcome.

The Digital Twin has moved, within a decade, from a NASA-and-USAF aspiration to a documented industrial architecture with an agreed vocabulary, published reference models, and a regulatory pathway for earning maintenance credit. The corresponding shift in non-destructive evaluation is that inspection is no longer a periodic pass-or-fail activity but a continuous information stream feeding an asset's digital representation. Realising that shift requires competences that rarely sit in one organisation: the materials physics that determines what a defect does, the inspection and sensing physics that determines what can be seen, the reduced-order and multifidelity modelling that makes real-time inference tractable, the enterprise architecture that preserves identity from as-designed to as-measured, the probabilistic machinery that propagates model, parameter and measurement uncertainty into a prognosis, and the standards and certification work without which none of it may be relied upon in service. This part will be structured as follows:

• Digital Twin for Ceramic Manufacturing Process (tentative title)
  Speaker: Dr. Shyam S. Rao (Carborundum Universal Ltd.)
• Standardisation of Digital Architecture (tentative title)
  Speaker: Dr. Ravi Rajamani (drR2 consulting LLC)
• Digital Twin-enabled Aerospace Engineering (tentative title)
  Speaker: Dr. S. Nagendra Somanath (SciVision Centre of Excellence Pvt. Ltd.)
• Model-Based Digital Thread (Manufacturing) and Industry 4.0 Architecture (tentative title)
  Speaker: Jaynath Ganguli (Pratt & Whitney/USA)
• Real-time Sensing Digital Twins for Aerospace Structures (tentative title)
  Speaker: Prof. Laura Mainini (Imperial College/UK)
• Probabilistic, Physics-informed Digital Twin Framework for Engineering Reliability (tentative title)
  Speaker: Prof. Sankaran Mahadevan (Vanderbilt Univ./USA)

This part of this topical track builds on the foundations laid in Part 1, turning to real-world technology and experience with digital twins and digital threads in design, integration, reliability and NDE. Researchers, practitioners, and regulators working across this field are invited to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations. Contributions may address but are not limited to the following topics:

• Physical asset and material state
• Multimodal inspection and sensing
• Data fusion and feature extraction
• Physics-based Digital Twin
• Bayesian and machine-learning model updating
• Damage estimation and residual useful life (RUL)
• Uncertainty quantification
• Digital thread, traceability and configuration
• Standards, certification and airworthiness
• Risk-informed maintenance.

These topics are intended as a guidance rather than a fixed set. Submissions that address related challenges in bringing digital twins and digital threads into reliable, certifiable aerospace inspection are equally welcome.

Over the last three decades, aerospace NDT personnel qualification and employer certification and authorisation, have evolved into highly structured frameworks, governed by requirements stated in NAS 410 and EN 4179 standards, reinforced through Nadcap accreditation, and enforced via FAA/EASA airworthiness regulation and OEM-specific qualification requirements. In the meantime, emerging technologies such as additive manufacturing, advanced composites, digital inspection, automation, robotics, structural health monitoring and AI-assisted inspection are creating new challenges for qualification, certification and accreditation systems. This part will be examining how existing certification frameworks must evolve to address future inspection requirements while maintaining the highest levels of airworthiness and public safety. It brings together international experts from regulatory agencies, aerospace OEMs, accreditation bodies and certification organizations to review the global landscape and discuss the next generation of aerospace NDT accreditation and certification frameworks.

Talks within Part 1 will include but may not be limited to the following:

• Insights from Spanish Association of NDT (Tentative)
  Speaker: Mr. Jose Luis Vilas Teruel, Spanish Association of NDT (Tentative) or Ms. Esmeralda Cuevas
• NAS410 Revision 6 and EN4179:2026: Changes, Transition Requirements and Implications for Indian Employers (tentative title)
  Speaker: Mr. Dale Lynn, Ooga Technologies, USA
• Certification Challenges for Advanced Materials, Composites and Additive Manufacturing (tentative title)
  Speaker: Aerospace OEM Representative (TBD)
• Insights from International Aerospace NDT Bodies
  Speaker: (TBD)
• Towards Global Recognition and Mutual Acceptance of Aerospace NDT Competencies (tentative title)
  Speaker: (TBD)

Rapid growth in commercial aviation, indigenous defence programmes, unmanned systems, aircraft maintenance and repair activities, private aerospace manufacturing, and the expanding space sector are creating unprecedented demand for highly qualified aerospace NDT personnel in India. Reliable and standardized inspection capabilities to ensure airworthiness and mission safety are therefore in need. While India has a well-established NDT community through the Indian Society for Non-destructive Testing (ISNT) and recognized certification schemes under ISO 9712, the country presently lacks a National Aerospace NDT Board (NANDTB) of the kind referenced by EASA and NAS410/EN4179-aligned frameworks. Such Indian NANDTB is intended to support the ecosystem already in place, overseeing aerospace-specific qualification and examination requirements, determining equivalence (including specifying which elements of existing ISO 9712 certification can be recognized as prior evidence, and what additional aerospace-specific examinations, experience and employer authorization would remain necessary), setting requirements for emerging inspection methods, and approving training and examination organizations. This session will bring together key stakeholders from civil aviation, military airworthiness, aerospace manufacturing, certification bodies and the aerospace industry to discuss the opportunities, challenges and roadmap for establishing a NANDTB.

Talks within Part 2 will include but may not be limited to the following:

• Evolving Airworthiness Expectations in India's Rapidly Expanding Civil Aviation Sector (tentative title)
  Speaker: Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)
• Military Airworthiness, Certification and the Role of Advanced NDT in Defence Aviation (tentative title)
  Speaker: Director General / Senior Representative, CEMILAC
• Operational NDT Challenges in Military Aviation and Fleet Sustainment (tentative title)
  Speaker: Indian Air Force Representative
• ISNT's Proposed Role in Supporting NAS410/EN4179- Aligned Aerospace NDT Qualification in India, to meet Regulatory EASA and FAA Requirements (tentative title)
  Speaker: Indian Society for Non-destructive Testing (ISNT)
• How a NANDTB Actually Works: Scope, Governance and What It Does Not Replace (tentative title)
  Speaker: TBD
• Employer Certification, OEM Approval and Nadcap — Who Is Accountable for What? (tentative title)
  Speaker: TBD
• ISO 9712 as Prior Evidence, Not a Substitute: Defining India's Recognition Pathway (tentative title)
  Speaker: TBD
• Qualifying Competence for Digital, Automated and AI-Assisted NDT in the Indian Context (tentative title)
  Speaker: TBD