Human-centric triboelectric nanogenerators for self-powered sensing, exercise technologies, and intelligent interfaces.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have rapidly evolved from mechanical energy harvesters into human-centric, self-powered sensing platforms capable of extracting rich information from ubiquitous mechanical interactions. This review presents a system-level perspective on recent advances that connect materials design, scalable manufacturing, and intelligent human-oriented applications. We first summarize progress in materials and interface engineering that enables high charge density, environmental robustness, and long-term operational stability. We then discuss large-scale manufacturing and product-level reliability, with emphasis on scalable fabrication routes, modular device architectures, packaging strategies, and deployment-relevant performance metrics. Building on these foundations, we highlight exercise technologies as a representative human-centric domain, where TENG-based biomechanical sensors enable self-powered motion and pressure sensing, training evaluation, and real-time feedback in wearable and sports systems. Finally, we review emerging artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled robotics and human-machine interfaces (HMI), illustrating how data-centric signal processing and edge-level intelligence transform raw triboelectric signals into actionable perception, interaction, and control. By integrating sensing, data, intelligence, and system optimization around human activity, this review outlines key challenges and future opportunities for standardized, scalable, and intelligent self-powered sensing systems in next-generation IoT, smart exercise analytics, and interactive robotics.