In an Emerson fireside chat, RF and Wireless Technology Trends for 2026, Sarah LaSelva, Chief NI Product Marketing Manager for Emerson’s Test and Measurement business, and Gabi Castillo, Principal NI Technical Marketer for Semiconductor Production Test at Emerson, walked through the trends most likely to land on test plans next year.

They worked from a single filter: a trend earned a place on the list only if enterprises were spending on it, national governments were paying attention to it, and consumers were adopting it.

Why It Matters

Test engineers in aerospace and defense, electronics, semiconductor, and transportation industries do not have the luxury of waiting for trends to settle. The technologies Sarah and Gabi covered are already shifting budgets, shaping legislation, and changing consumer behavior. The picture they offered was less hype cycle and more interconnected web, with artificial intelligence (AI), sixth-generation wireless (6G), non-terrestrial networks (NTN), defense priorities, and semiconductor supply chains all bending toward one another. Reading these trends in isolation will miss how they reinforce and constrain each other.

Key Takeaways

• AI has moved past the trough of disillusionment and into a return-on-investment conversation, with Emerson’s NI brand AI advisor, Nigel, now available for test and measurement customers.
• The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) kicked off Release 20 in 2025, setting the first agenda items for 6G.
• Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC), also called Joint Communications and Sensing (JCAS), is emerging as a defining 6G use case.
• Non-terrestrial networks are back in the conversation, with Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, T-Mobile partnerships, and the iPhone satellite SOS feature pointing to broader adoption.
• The 2025 US National Defense Authorization Act signaled a pivot toward commercial off-the-shelf parts and open architecture test and measurement.
• Power, semiconductor supply chain localization, and advanced digital signal processing (DSP) are the quieter forces shaping what is actually buildable in 2026.

AI Moves From Hype to Return on Investment

AI has been the dominant trend since OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022. Gabi placed 2023 at the peak of inflated expectations, with 2024 and parts of 2025 marking the trough of disillusionment, and the current conversation sitting on the slope of enlightenment. The 2025 year-in-review included DeepSeek’s R1 release in January, US executive orders on AI early in the year, the introduction of the term “vibe coding” in February, EU regulations following soon after, and the US AI plan released mid-year. Regulatory authority remains contested across federal and state lines.

Inside Emerson, the response has been practical. Sarah pointed to a proof of concept that uses machine learning to train digital pre-distortion (DPD) for power amplifiers. This area is typically compute-intensive and benefits from highly optimized models. A second effort replaces parts of wireless systems with machine learning across a full test bed. Gabi reinforced that AI is not one thing: large language models are the most mature; generative media is next; AI agents are earlier and are moving toward autonomy; and synthetic perception, nested under robotics, remains further out.

6G and Integrated Sensing and Communications

2025 was a meaningful year for 6G, and Sarah expects that to continue throughout 2026. With 3GPP Release 20 underway, ISAC has emerged as a leading use case. The idea is to reuse the wireless network we already have, with base stations everywhere and phones in every pocket, as a sensing system. Researchers are studying how to combine traditional radar waveforms, such as frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW), with communications waveforms.

The applications are concrete. ISAC can deliver centimeter-level location precision on a manufacturing floor, which matters for coordinating robots with each other and with people. Smart glasses, drones, and a wide range of robotics applications, including industrial inspections and semiconductor clean rooms, all sit downstream of the same capability. For carriers facing a strained business model, sensing also opens a potential new revenue path.

Non-Terrestrial Networks, Defense, and Golden Dome

NTN aims to extend coverage beyond the ground, either by relaying through satellites in a bent-pipe architecture or by placing the base station in orbit. Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper are deploying at scale, T-Mobile already offers limited NTN service, and the iPhone’s satellite SOS feature shows the consumer entry point. Sarah was clear that expectations should stay grounded. Video calls over NTN are not close, but emergency messaging and limited data communications are realistic for 2026.

Defense pulls on the same threads. The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act marked a pivot toward agility, with more commercial off-the-shelf parts, open architecture, and less reliance on conventional contractors, in support of AI, quantum, and drone applications. The 2026 act, released in December 2025, expanded on the previous year’s priorities of acquisition reform and supply chain security. The recent US National Defense Strategy references Golden Dome and space-based solutions. Gabi described Golden Dome as not yet a trend, but a looming concept tied to command, control, and communications (C3) over wide-area coverage.

The Quiet Drivers: Power, Silicon, and Signal Processing

Sustainability is the through line. Data centers are water and energy-intensive, and Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing in their own nuclear power, with one of the three also acquiring a cement company. 5G underdelivered, partly due to sustainability and infrastructure constraints, and 6G aims to be greener and more circular. Advanced DSP is changing as well, with GPU compute pushing engineers to rewrite traditional algorithms as machine learning models, while staying disciplined about when AI is the right tool given performance, resource, and sustainability tradeoffs. Semiconductor supply chain localization adds another layer, with four broad scenarios ranging from a US-centric model to a North American stronghold, a multi-nodal patchwork, or a more protectionist posture.

Watch the Full Conversation

For Sarah and Gabi’s complete fireside chat on the trends, the bingo card they built, and the test and measurement implications for 2026, watch the on-demand session: RF and Wireless Technology Trends for 2026.