Architecture‐Driven Sensor Stability in Weft‐Knitted Engineering Textiles

Textile‐integrated sensors are investigated as functional elements in engineering textiles, enabling monitoring in deformable systems, including biomedical applications. While most current research focuses on material choice, mounting evidence shows that the textile architecture also plays a decisive role in affecting sensor stability and reliability. This study compares two textile architectures designed for sensor integration: a weft‐knitted pocket structure and a weft‐knitted tunnel‐routing structure. These architectures employ different sensor integration approaches, such as embroidered capacitive sensors and braided sensor yarns, which reflect their respective structural integration strategies. The integrated textile samples were subjected to tensile, bending, and compressive loads, as well as thermal sterilization and exposure to chemical environments relevant to wound care applications. Under these conditions, the two textile architectures exhibited stable resistance behavior under mechanical stress, whereas their capacitive responses differed according to the integration strategy. The pocket structure demonstrated lower signal drift and higher repeatability, whereas the tunnel design offered higher sensitivity at the cost of increased variability. Notably, both architectures retained sensing functionality after sterilization and chemical exposure. These results emphasize that textile architecture is a key factor in determining sensor reliability, with the pocket‐type design providing a robust platform for capacitive sensing in functional engineering textiles.