Intelligent Textiles Are Looking Bright

Flexible fiber electronics couple with the human body for wireless tactile sensing. Intelligent textiles are fabrics and garments with integrated functionalities that can sense, store, process, and communicate information in a seamless, scalable, and unobtrusive manner. They create vast opportunities, ranging from monitoring physiological signals and daily physical interactions to powering smart-home devices. Challenges to achieving such materials include incorporating softness, flexibility, and breathability without losing desired functionality. However, present wireless modules, microprocessors, and analog-to-digital converters rely on intrinsically rigid integrated circuit chips that consume high power and hinder coherent incorporation into soft fibers and textiles. On page 74 of this issue, Yang et al. report a chipless fiber for wireless visual-to-digital transmission that senses interactions with the human body. The fibers can be woven into wearable fabric and could transform how people interact with the environment and with each other.