Fault Diagnosis in Analog Circuits Using a Multi-Input Convolutional Neural Network with Feature Attention

Abstract

Accurate fault diagnosis in analog circuits faces significant challenges owing to the inherent complexity of fault data patterns and the limited feature representation capabilities of conventional methodologies. Addressing the limitations of current convolutional neural networks (CNN) in handling heterogeneous fault characteristics, this study presents an efficient channel attention-enhanced multi-input CNN framework (ECA-MI-CNN) with dual-domain feature fusion, demonstrating three key innovations. First, the proposed framework addresses multi-domain feature extraction through parallel CNN branches specifically designed for processing time-domain and frequency-domain features, effectively preserving their distinct characteristic information. Second, the incorporation of an efficient channel attention (ECA) module between convolutional layers enables adaptive feature response recalibration, significantly enhancing discriminative feature learning while maintaining computational efficiency. Third, a hierarchical fusion strategy systematically integrates time-frequency domain features through concatenation and fully connected layer transformations prior to classification. Comprehensive simulation experiments conducted on Butterworth low-pass filters and two-stage quad op-amp dual second-order low-pass filters demonstrate the framework’s superior diagnostic capabilities. Real-world validation on Butterworth low-pass filters further reveals substantial performance advantages over existing methods, establishing an effective solution for complex fault pattern recognition in electronic systems.