1D Convolutional Neural Networks and Applications: A Survey
Serkan KiranyazOnur AvciOsama AbdeljaberTurker InceMoncef GabboujDaniel J. Inman
Presents a comprehensive guide to 1D Convolutional Neural Networks, detailing how their compact architecture enables real-time, low-cost signal processing and high-accuracy classification in biomedical diagnosis, structural health monitoring, and fault detection.
The article surveys the development and engineering uses of compact 1D convolutional neural networks, which were introduced to handle one-dimensional signals such as electrocardiograms, vibration recordings, and motor currents. Traditional deep 2D CNNs excel on images but demand large labeled datasets and heavy computation, making them impractical for many 1D tasks where data are scarce or real-time operation on modest hardware is required. The review therefore focuses on lightweight 1D CNN architectures that perform only scalar convolutions and pooling, allowing them to fuse feature extraction and classification within a single trainable model.
The authors trace the evolution from early biological-neuron models through 2D CNN milestones such as LeNet and AlexNet, then detail the forward- and back-propagation equations specific to 1D layers. They evaluate performance on four major domains using publicly available benchmark data: patient-specific arrhythmia detection in ECG signals, vibration-based damage localization in large-scale civil structures, bearing-fault identification from motor currents, and open-circuit fault detection in modular multilevel converters. Across these studies the compact 1D networks reached accuracies of 97–99 percent while running tens of times faster than real time on ordinary CPUs.
These results matter because they demonstrate that high-accuracy, low-latency monitoring is feasible without specialized GPUs or exhaustive labeled datasets. In structural health monitoring, for example, individual 1D CNNs attached to wireless sensors detected loosened bolts instantly with zero false alarms. In cardiac monitoring the same approach enabled early warning of arrhythmias in healthy individuals by synthesizing plausible abnormal beats for training. The low computational footprint also supports deployment on mobile or embedded devices where power and memory are limited.
The article concludes that further gains are likely from replacing the linear neuron model with heterogeneous operators, as recently explored in operational neural networks. It recommends continued public release of code and datasets, systematic comparison against emerging alternatives, and extension to additional 1D signal domains. The principal limitation noted is reliance on the classic linear neuron; results therefore remain bounded by the expressive power of that model until more flexible architectures mature.
- Paper: Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition, Yann LeCun et al. (1998). Provides the foundational gradient-based convolutional architecture and backpropagation framework that the survey adapts and translates into one-dimensional signal formulations.
- Paper: Deep learning for time series classification: a review, Hassan Ismail Fawaz et al. (2018). Establishes a comprehensive empirical benchmark of deep neural networks for 1D time-series classification, providing critical comparative context for dedicated 1D CNN architectures.
- Paper: An Empirical Evaluation of Generic Convolutional and Recurrent Networks for Sequence Modeling, Shaojie Bai et al. (2018). Demonstrates the foundational effectiveness and architectural principles of 1D temporal convolutions over recurrent networks for general sequential data modeling.
- Paper: An Introduction to Convolutional Neural Networks, Keiron O'Shea et al. (2015). Introduces the standard building blocks, parameter sharing, and pooling operations of convolutional networks that are reduced to scalar operations in 1D CNNs.
- Paper: EEGNet: a compact convolutional neural network for EEG-based brain–computer interfaces, Vernon J. Lawhern et al. (2016). Presents a compact, specialized 1D/spatial convolutional architecture for biological time-series signals that exemplifies the lightweight edge-deployment motivations reviewed in the survey.
- Paper: Temporal Convolutional Networks for Action Segmentation and Detection, Colin Lea et al. (2016). Pioneers the use of hierarchical temporal 1D convolutions for sequence modeling, illustrating early successes in 1D signal segmentation.
- Paper: Efficient Processing of Deep Neural Networks: A Tutorial and Survey, Vivienne Sze et al. (2017). Explains the energy, memory, and computational trade-offs that motivate adopting compact 1D scalar convolutions over resource-heavy multidimensional models on hardware.
- Paper: Recent advances in convolutional neural networks, Jiuxiang Gu et al. (2015). Surveys the core architectural enhancements and optimization techniques in standard CNNs that serve as the baseline designs surveyed in 1D applications.
- Paper: ECA-Net: Efficient Channel Attention for Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Qilong Wang et al. (2019). Directly applies fast 1D scalar convolutions across channel dimensions to create an ultra-lightweight channel attention mechanism for deep architectures.
- Paper: A Survey of Convolutional Neural Networks: Analysis, Applications, and Prospects, Zewen Li et al. (2020). Broadens the survey's focus by synthesizing modern 1D, 2D, and multi-dimensional convolutional architectures into a unified comprehensive framework.
- Paper: On the Relationship between Self-Attention and Convolutional Layers, Jean-Baptiste Cordonnier et al. (2020). Investigates the theoretical and operational equivalence between attention mechanisms and convolutional layers, offering theoretical depth to convolution design.
- Paper: CvT: Introducing Convolutions to Vision Transformers, Haiping Wu et al. (2021). Extends the efficiency advantages of convolutional operators by embedding depthwise convolutions directly within modern transformer architectures.
- Paper: Transformers are RNNs: Fast Autoregressive Transformers with Linear Attention, Angelos Katharopoulos et al. (2020). Explores linear-complexity sequence modeling alternatives that address sequence processing efficiency alongside compact convolutional approaches.
