An Improved Neural Network Model Based on DenseNet for Fabric Texture Recognition

In modern knitted garment production, accurate identification of fabric texture is crucial for enabling automation and ensuring consistent quality control. Traditional manual recognition methods not only demand considerable human effort but also suffer from inefficiencies and are prone to subjective errors. Although machine learning-based approaches have made notable advancements, they typically rely on manual feature extraction. This dependency is time-consuming and often limits recognition accuracy. To address these limitations, this paper introduces a novel model, called the Differentiated Leaning Weighted DenseNet (DLW-DenseNet), which builds upon the DenseNet architecture. Specifically, DLW-DenseNet introduces a learnable weight mechanism that utilizes channel attention to enhance the selection of relevant channels. The proposed mechanism reduces information redundancy and expands the feature search space of the model. To maintain the effectiveness of channel selection in the later stages of training, DLW-DenseNet incorportes a differentiated learning strategy. By assigning distinct learning rates to the learnable weights, the model ensures continuous and efficient channel selection throughout the training process, thus facilitating effective model pruning. Furthermore, in response to the absence of publicly available datasets for fabric texture recognition, we construct a new dataset named KF9 (knitted fabric). Compared to the fabric recognition network based on the improved ResNet, the recognition accuracy has increased by five percentage points, achieving a higher recognition rate. Experimental results demonstrate that DLW-DenseNet significantly outperforms other representative methods in terms of recognition accuracy on the KF9 dataset.