Intrinsic selectivity in fiber/textile-based multimodal sensors: Materials, architectures, and design principles

With the rapid development of flexible electronics and wearable technologies, fiber/textile-based multimodal flexible sensors have emerged as promising candidates for next-generation smart textiles. Owing to their softness, breathability, deformability, skin conformability, and compatibility with scalable textile manufacturing, these sensors show great potential in health monitoring, human-machine interaction, soft robotics, and personalized wearable systems. However, the hierarchical structure of textile materials makes multimodal sensing more complex than simple functional integration, as different stimuli can induce coupled structural and electrical responses, resulting in signal overlap and crosstalk. To promote the practical application and better development of multimodal smart textiles, this review summarizes recent progress in fiber/textile-based multimodal sensors from the perspective of structure-enabled selective sensing. The intrinsic coupling mechanisms, structural design principles, and integration strategies are reviewed to clarify how textile structures can be engineered for selective response, reduced interference, and improved sensing reliability. This review further discusses the current challenges and future development trends of multimodal smart textiles, including robust sensing, scalable fabrication, system integration, and wearable reliability. Overall, this review aims to provide useful guidance for researchers in materials science, textile engineering, flexible electronics, and wearable systems and to inspire the development of next-generation multimodal smart textiles with intrinsic selectivity and practical applicability.