Simcenter Testlab 2606: Faster and smarter next-generation testing, earlier trusted outcomes
What’s new in Simcenter Testlab 2606
- Completing the transition to next-generation workflows enables teams to perform all steps from measurement to trusted outcomes with fewer handoffs and greater efficiency.
- Enabling AI-ready engineering data creation with improved context, validation, processing, and automation as a foundation to build trusted AI workflows.
- Bringing virtual validation capabilities to reduce risk and gain confidence before critical physical tests begin.
- Introducing free time data acquisition software extensions for Simcenter SCADAS hardware that enable immediate measuring, monitoring, and validation without additional purchases, licenses, or network dependencies.
- Industrializing measurement and calculation of invariant blocked forces for system-level NVH prediction through fully automated, ISO-compliant workflows.
Physical testing has always been under pressure to deliver more insight in less time. Today, that pressure is coming from several directions at once.
Programs are becoming faster and leaner, reducing the number of physical prototypes available for validation. Experienced engineers are being asked to support more programs than ever before. Organizations are under increasing pressure to establish an AI strategy grounded in reliable engineering data. And virtual validation is now essential for mitigating risk and maintaining a competitive edge. Simultaneously, the demand for flexible, reliable data acquisition has never been higher.
Any one of these trends would justify rethinking next-generation testing workflows. Testing must become more efficient, more intelligent, earlier, and more versatile simultaneously. That challenge forms the foundation of Simcenter Testlab 2606.
Efficiency & innovation
The theme of Simcenter Testlab 2606 is simple: Efficiency and innovation
The latest release completes the transition to a single integrated environment that combines next-generation testing workflows, AI-ready data, virtual validation, and flexible data acquisition. Rather than introducing isolated improvements, the focus is on helping engineering organizations eliminate friction throughout the testing process and prepare for the future of product development.
Move from instrumentation to insight with greater confidence and less effort.”
Whether teams are characterizing structural dynamics, validating NVH performance, qualifying spacecraft, managing large-scale data campaigns, or acquiring data in the lab or field, the objective remains the same: move from instrumentation to insight with greater confidence and less effort.
More efficient: complete next-generation workflows from measurement to insight
Many of the delays in a test campaign occur between tasks rather than within them.
Engineers move data between applications. Measurement results are reformatted and reprocessed. Knowledge is transferred between specialists. Valuable time is spent managing hand-offs rather than generating engineering insight.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 completes the transition toward next-generation workflows inside Simcenter Testlab Neo. Structural dynamics, modal testing, transfer path analysis, and virtual prototype assembly workflows can be executed with fewer interruptions and less manual effort.
The result is a single integrated environment that helps teams spend less time managing data and more time understanding product behavior.
Reduce workflow friction so engineers can focus on engineering decisions.”
Complete next-generation structural dynamics workflows bring up to 35% efficiency
Structural dynamics testing has traditionally required engineers to move between multiple activities, from geometry preparation and instrumentation through acquisition, modal analysis, and model validation. As structures become more complex and development schedules become tighter, these workflow interruptions increasingly limit productivity.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 completes the transition toward next-generation structural dynamics workflows inside Simcenter Testlab Neo. New capabilities, such as Shaker Acquisition, complete core FRF testing scenarios, while MLMM and Modal Synthesis further expand modal analysis and validation workflows. With enhancements to Impact Acquisition, Virtual Instrumentation, and Virtual Point Transformation, engineers can move more efficiently from measurement to validated structural understanding within a single integrated environment.
Across complete workflows, organizations can achieve efficiency gains of up to 35 percent while maintaining confidence in their results.
Complete system NVH prediction in a single workflow, bringing up to 60% efficiency
Predicting how a vehicle will sound before a prototype exists has traditionally required engineers to integrate multiple tools, manage data transfers, and manually transfer information across characterization, assembly, and assessment activities. While the individual technologies were available, the overall workflow often remained fragmented.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 marks an important milestone in this evolution. Transfer Path Analysis, Virtual Prototype Assembly (VPA), and NVH Simulator now work together within a complete next-generation workflow. Engineers can characterize operational loads, assemble validated subsystems, predict full-system behavior, and evaluate results through listening and assessment, all within the same integrated environment. New capabilities such as VPA Definition, automated generation of operational datasets and analyses, experimental frequency-based decoupling, and enhanced NVH Simulator functionality, all within Simcenter Testlab Neo, help reduce manual effort while enabling faster, more intuitive system-level prediction workflows.
The result is a complete Characterize → Assemble → Assess process that can be up to 60 percent more efficient than before.
Automating blocked force testing for efficient NVH development: Industrialization in full compliance with ISO 20270
To accelerate virtual NVH development toward zero prototyping, engineering teams need technologies that enable them to reduce time per component while delivering defensible quality.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 introduces a new integrated hardware-and-software solution for automatically extracting invariant component models in full compliance with ISO 20270. Directly pluggable into Simcenter Testlab Virtual Prototype Assembly, it transforms component characterization from a slow, expert-only exercise into a fast, repeatable, technician-ready bench process. By reducing manual effort at the component level, tasks that previously required weeks of a specialist’s time can now be completed in hours or even minutes by a lab technician.
AI-ready: turning engineering data into a strategic asset
AI is rapidly becoming an expectation across engineering organizations. Yet many teams face a fundamental challenge: AI-driven results can only be as good as the data behind them.
The value of engineering AI depends on AI-ready data that is structured, contextualized, traceable, and trustworthy. With Simcenter Testlab 2606, we continue to deliver an integrated workflow to help organizations acquire and manage data in ways that support future AI initiatives. Automation, workflow integration, and improved data context help lay the foundation for AI-driven engineering processes without placing an additional burden on test teams.
In other words, the release helps organizations move beyond data collection to the creation of AI-ready data assets.
AI success starts with engineering data that can be trusted.”
Build context into engineering data and schedule the tests
AI initiatives frequently struggle not because measurement data is unavailable, but because important engineering context is missing. Understanding test conditions, configurations, operating scenarios, and measurement intent often requires manual investigation long after the original campaign has been completed.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 helps capture that information during testing. Descriptive Annotation enables teams to capture and preserve engineering context directly within the workflow.
Schedule Acquisition provides a structured framework for repeatable, scalable measurement campaigns, enabling the creation of AI-ready datasets that retain clarity and reusability long after testing is complete.
Prepare and deliver AI-ready engineering data
Preparing data for analytics and machine learning often requires repeated validation, processing, feature extraction, and dataset assembly activities. Simcenter Testlab 2606 continues to orchestrate these tasks through Process Designer, Workflow Automation, and Testlab Data Management.
New capabilities allow teams to discover and process centrally managed historical datasets based on annotation and search criteria, helping standardize the preparation of large engineering data collections.
Whether working with newly acquired measurements or years of archived results, engineers can apply repeatable workflows at scale and prepare datasets more efficiently for delivering to downstream analytics and AI training environments.
Validate earlier: reducing risk before physical testing begins
For many organizations, risk is most costly when it is discovered late.
Whether qualifying a spacecraft, validating a prototype, or evaluating a critical subsystem, engineering teams want confidence before committing valuable hardware and program resources.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 introduces new capabilities for virtual validation and de-risking, including real-time Virtual Shaker Testing and enhanced pre-test analysis through Model Compare.
Rather than waiting for a critical test to reveal unexpected behavior, engineers can investigate system responses earlier, evaluate alternative scenarios, and gain confidence before entering the physical campaign. By moving learning earlier in the process, teams can reduce uncertainty when there is the least margin for error.
Instead of learning during the test, engineers can increasingly learn before the test.”
Learn before qualification, not during qualification
Qualification testing often occurs when there is the least margin for error and the greatest risk to valuable hardware. By the time a spacecraft reaches an environmental test facility, years of engineering effort, significant investment, and tightly coordinated schedules are already in place. Yet many important insights into controller settings, limiting strategies, transient responses, and system behavior are traditionally discovered only after the physical test is already underway.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 introduces Virtual Shaker Testing to help accelerate that learning. Engineers can derive a model of the complete test setup from system identification measurements and use it to evaluate qualification scenarios before applying full test levels to physical hardware. This enables teams to investigate potential issues, refine test settings, and reduce uncertainty before entering the most critical phase of the test campaign.
Build confidence through virtual qualification and model validation
Virtual testing is only valuable if engineers can trust the virtual representation of the test environment. Simcenter Testlab 2606 extends the workflow with new Model Compare capabilities that help engineers evaluate the relationship between predicted and measured behavior. Engineers can compare physical and virtual system frequency response functions, assess differences between models, and determine whether the virtual environment accurately reflects the system that will undergo qualification testing.
Together, Virtual Shaker Testing and Model Compare create a practical workflow for qualification preparation: measured behavior informs the virtual model, the virtual model informs test decisions, and qualification can then be executed with greater confidence. Rather than using qualification testing to discover behavior, teams can increasingly use it to confirm behavior that has already been virtually validated.
Maximize value: free acquisition software and expanded capabilities
Modern testing rarely happens in a single location.
Validation activities increasingly span laboratories, proving grounds, manufacturing environments, field deployments, and remote operating conditions. Engineers need the same confidence in data quality regardless of where measurements are acquired.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 expands that flexibility through free time data acquisition software and continued support for a modern, scalable acquisition ecosystem. When combined with Simcenter SCADAS hardware, organizations can immediately capture, validate, and manage data across a wide range of testing environments while preserving workflow consistency.
Capture trusted data instantly, wherever testing occurs.”
License-free acquisition software removes barriers to testing
Many engineers do not need advanced analysis on day one. Instead, they need a flexible and instant way to instrument sensors, acquire data, validate results, and move on with confidence.
Newly released, Simcenter Testlab Go and Simcenter SCADAS Go are license-free software extensions for Simcenter SCADAS hardware, enabling immediate time data acquisition, monitoring, and validation without requiring additional purchases, license administration, dongles, or network dependencies. They increase deployment flexibility, maximize existing and future hardware investments, and provide a natural entry point to the broader Simcenter Testlab portfolio.
Whether measurements are performed in the laboratory, on a proving ground, or at a remote site, engineers can begin capturing trusted data without introducing additional complexity or license overhead.
Rugged acquisition for real-world conditions
The new release continues to expand the capabilities of the Simcenter SCADAS RS acquisition hardware for NVH testing, building on its established durability heritage. New enhancements such as integrated AC Calibration, Autorange functionality, expanded bandwidth support, and torsional vibration measurements help engineers perform vibration, acoustic, and rotational analysis in demanding operating conditions.
Combined with browser-based access through Simcenter SCADAS Go Recorder, these capabilities, as of now, help organizations acquire high-quality NVH measurement data wherever products are tested and operated, in the lab or in the field, and under any conditions.
Key takeaways
✅ Efficiency: Test faster and smarter via complete next-generation workflows integrated in Simcenter Testlab Neo.
✅ AI-Ready: Data assets built on trust and context.
✅ Earlier Validation: De-risking high-stakes tests virtually.
✅ Future-proof: Free acquisition software extensions for instant lab and field testing with any Simcenter SCADAS.
The future of testing is here
The pressure on testing teams will continue to grow. Programs will continue to seek faster development cycles, fewer prototypes, and earlier confidence.
Simcenter Testlab 2606 is not just an update; it is a strategic response to these demands. By removing workflow friction, building trusted data assets, and moving validation earlier in the program, we are helping you turn physical testing from a final check into a continuous source of competitive advantage.
Because in the end, testing isn’t just about measuring what happened. It’s about knowing what will happen.
Validate designs sooner, prepare data for the age of AI, reduce development risk, and stay ahead of the curve. Explore Simcenter Testlab 2606 today and judge it yourself!
