Wearable E-textile systems should be comfortable so that highest efficiency of their functionality can be achieved. The development of electronic textiles (functional textiles) as a wearable technology for various applications has intensified the use of flexible wearable functional textiles instead of wearable electronics. However, the wearable functional textiles still bring comfort complications during wear. The purpose of this review paper is to sightsee and recap recent developments in the field of functional textile comfort evaluation systems. For textile-based materials which have close contact to the skin, clothing comfort is a fundamental necessity. In this paper, the effects of functional finishing on the comfort of the textile material were reviewed. A brief review of clothing comfort evaluations for textile fabrics based on subjective and objective techniques was conducted. The reasons behind the necessity for sensory evaluation for smart and functional clothing have been presented. The existing works of literature on comfort evaluation techniques applied to functional fabrics have been reviewed. Statistical and soft computing/artificial intelligence presentations from selected fabric comfort studies were also reviewed. Challenges of smart textiles and its future highlighted. Some experimental results were presented to support the review. From the aforementioned reviews, it is noted that the electronics clothing comfort evaluation of smart/functional fabrics needs more focus.
Keywords: comfort evaluation; functional textiles; intelligent systems; wearable technologies.