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Wei et al. Soft Sci 2023;3:17 https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ss.2023.09 Page 7 of 38

Weaving
Weaving is a textile processing technology in which warp and weft are vertically crossed to form a textile.
Weaving technology has been widely used, with the intersection of warp and weft often designed as a
sensing unit [99,100] . Based on the shuttle-flying weaving technique, Gong et al. weaved polylactic acid fibers
into a reconfigurable green electronic textile, as shown in Figure 3A. Due to the excellent mechanical
properties of polylactic acid fiber, the designed textile is applicable for large-scale production and possesses
good washability . In the study of Zeng, through scalable industrial textile weaving routes, fabricated
[101]
[102]
metal fabric presented satisfactory mechanical strength, breathability, and waterproofness . Moreover,
Choi et al. fabricated a smart textile system by weaving processes, including wireless power transmission,
touch sensing, photodetection, environmental/biosignal monitoring, and energy storage. The system design
and integration strategies based on the weaving process lay a foundation for large-scale smart home and IoT
applications .
[103]
Knitting
Knitting is the process of intertwining yarns to form a textile, which mainly includes weft knitting and warp
knitting. As the structure of knitted textiles can be easily stretched in different directions, it is regarded as a
very effective manufacturing method for strain-sensing textiles . Yang et al. developed a graphene textile
[104]
strain sensor with a weft-knitted textile substrate, possessing high sensitivity and wide-range tensile
response . As shown in Figure 3B, Dong et al. reported a facile and all-yarn-based knitting power textile
[105]
[50]
that enabled both biomechanical energy harvesting and simultaneous energy storing . With the
weft-knitting technique, the textile had the characteristics of the high elasticity, flexibility, and stretchability
and was qualified with adaptability in complex mechanical deformation. Moreover, Uzun et al. coated
[106]
cellulose yarns with MXene to produce highly conductive and electroactive yarns . By using an industrial
knitting machine, the yarns were knitted into textiles, providing a new method for the preparation of
flexible and wearable capacitive pressure sensors.

Sewing
Sewing is the simplest way to integrate functional fibers into textiles and provides great flexibility for textile
structure and function design. Functional fibers can be designed to various structural patterns and placed
[107]
on any position of the textile by sewing . As shown in Figure 3C, Lin et al. developed electronic textile
systems with near-field wireless power and communication capabilities, which are realized by the digital
embroidery of liquid metal fibers onto clothing . The compatibility of liquid metal fibers with the digital
[51]
embroidery process allowed the design of radio-frequency patterns on clothing by utilizing established
computer-controlled textile manufacturing. By sewing a sensing yarn into the designer pattern on the
garments, He et al. integrated electronic textile-based triboelectric sensors with versatile commercial
garments . With this scalable method of sewing, any commercial clothes can be easily converted into
[77]
intelligent wearable systems.

Non-woven
Non-woven is a technique that makes textiles by winding discontinuous staple fibers or filaments in a
random manner. Electrospinning is the most representative technology in the non-woven process [52,108] . As
shown in Figure 3D, electrospinning was adopted to manufacture nanofiber non-wovens, realizing an
all-fiber synergistic electronic textile . Through a self-assembly technology based on wet heterostructured
[109]
electrified jets, Zhang et al. developed versatile electrospinning micropyramid arrays. Self-assembly far-field
electrospinning apparatus was used for the design of the electrospinning pyramid array structure, which was
a new electrospinning method . A ferroelectric-enhanced triboelectric textile and the directional
[110]
moisture-wicking fabric were made by electrospinning non-woven. This new type of electrospinning