Recent Advances in Interactive Fibers: Sensing, Interconnecting, Computing, Feedback, and System Integration

Clothing, as the second skin of the human body, represents a natural interface for embodied intelligence. As the fundamental building blocks of clothing, fibers provide an intrinsic platform for embedding these functionalities. Interactive fibers transform fabrics from passive coverings into active and intelligent systems by integrating sensing, interconnecting, computing, and feedback capabilities within individual fibers. Here, we present a unified framework for fiber-based interactive systems, including sensing fibers for signal acquisition, interconnecting fibers for transmission, computing fibers for in situ processing, and feedback fibers for multimodal output. We further examine the evolution from distributed fabric-level assemblies to all-in-one monolithic fibers and discuss key challenges in robustness, scalable manufacturing, and human-centered compatibility. This work outlines a pathway toward autonomous interactive systems for next-generation human-machine interaction.