Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Convolutional Neural Network Fault Diagnosis Method for Rolling Bearings

Fault diagnosis methods for rolling bearings are frequently constrained to the automatic extraction of single-scale features from raw vibration signals, overlooking crucial information embedded in data of other scales, which often results in unsatisfactory diagnostic outcomes. To address this, a lightweight neural network model is proposed, which incorporates an improved Inception module for multi-scale convolutional feature fusion. Initially, this model generates time–frequency maps via continuous wavelet transform. Subsequently, it integrates the Fused-conv and Mbconv modules from the EfficientNet V2 architecture with the Inception module to conduct multi-scale convolution on input features, thereby comprehensively capturing fault information of the bearing. Additionally, it substitutes traditional convolution with depthwise separable convolution to minimize training parameters and introduces an attention mechanism to emphasize significant features while diminishing less relevant ones, thereby enhancing the accuracy of bearing fault diagnosis. Experimental findings indicate that the proposed fault diagnosis model achieves an accuracy of 100% under single-load conditions and 96.2% under variable-load conditions, demonstrating its applicability across diverse data sets and robust generalization capabilities.