Abstract

Textile-based sensors are a class of textile electronic devices that enable electrical responses to external stimuli through the integration of conductive or functional materials into fibers, yarns, or fabric structures, and serve as fundamental functional units in smart textiles. Compared with conventional rigid sensors, textile-based sensors exhibit distinct advantages, including high flexibility, large-area conformability, stretchability, lightweight, breathability, and wearing comfort, allowing them to detect physiological and environmental signals while preserving the intrinsic properties of textiles. In recent years, with the rapid development of advanced materials and fabrication technologies, the performance and functionality of textile-based sensors have been significantly expanded, demonstrating great potential in applications such as human motion monitoring, physiological signal detection, and human-machine interaction. This review systematically summarizes the material systems, structural designs, and sensing mechanisms of textile-based sensors, highlights the key challenges in current research, and further discusses their future development directions in health monitoring, smart garments, and interactive wearable systems in light of emerging technological trends.

Keywords: Textile-based sensors; Smart textiles; Sensing materials; Sensing mechanisms; Wearable electronics