Topic: AI-Enabled Wearable Soft Systems: From Materials to Intelligent Applications

This Special Issue focuses on the rapidly emerging convergence of soft materials, microfluidics, wearable systems, and machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), which together are redefining how the human body is sensed, interpreted, and augmented. Advances in soft science, including stretchable bioelectronics, soft robotics, bio-integrated materials, transient bioelectronics, and microfluidic and textile-based systems, are enabling wearable platforms that are mechanically compliant, physiologically relevant, and suitable for long-term real-world deployment. When coupled with AI-driven data analytics, these systems move beyond simple sensing toward adaptive, predictive, and personalized intelligence.

We invite original research articles, reviews, and perspectives that span the full pipeline, from materials development and device design to AI-enabled data interpretation and real-world applications. Topics of interest include: novel soft and hybrid materials for wearable sensing and actuation; stretchable, self-healing, and biodegradable electronics; soft microfluidics and biofluid-based sensing; and integration strategies for multimodal wearable platforms. Submissions addressing scalable fabrication, reliability, and real-world robustness of soft wearable systems are particularly encouraged.

On the intelligence side, this issue seeks contributions on ML and AI methods tailored for wearable data, including edge AI, low-power inference, multimodal sensor fusion, digital biomarkers, foundation models for physiological data, and personalization across diverse populations and environments. Papers that bridge physics-based modeling with data-driven approaches, or that leverage large-scale or longitudinal datasets, are especially welcome.

Application-focused studies may address areas such as sports and human performance, personalized healthcare, wearable technologies for warfighters, clinical medicine, rehabilitation, aging, occupational and industrial safety, human-machine interfaces, and soft robotic assistance. Translational work demonstrating validation in laboratory, clinical, or field settings is strongly encouraged.

By bringing together materials scientists, engineers, data scientists, and application-domain experts, this Special Issue aims to highlight how AI-enabled wearable soft systems can transform continuous human sensing into actionable intelligence with meaningful real-world impact.

Soft wearable systems; Stretchable and bio-integrated electronics; Microfluidics and textile-based sensing; Artificial intelligence and machine learning; Multimodal sensing and data fusion