To improve the airfoil lift to drag ratio, the simulation and optimization research has been performed on the traditional aviation airfoil NACA0012 and the wind turbine airfoil S8036, respectively. Under the condition of low wind speed, always used in horizontal axis wind turbines, with the adjoint (based on the control theory) and the fast mesh deformation methods, based on the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) numerical simulation. The results showed that two kinds of airfoils' aerodynamic characteristics could be improved effectively, combining the adjoint (based on the control theory) and the fast mesh deformation methods. Compared with the initial airfoils NACA0012 and S8036, lift-to-drag ratios of optimized airfoils were improved by 8.75% and 16.74%, respectively under the same fluid conditions. © 2019, Editorial Board of Acta Energiae Solaris Sinica. All right reserved.