Hybrid 1D-CNN and attention-based Bi-GRU neural networks for predicting moisture content of sand gravel using NIR spectroscopy

A non-destructive and rapid moisture content detection method of sand gravel material is required in loose material dams. The near-infrared (NIR) spectrum of sand materials is closely related to its moisture content. Recently, there is a growing need for fully using spectral information when establishing calibration models for sand gravel moisture content detection. To address these issues, a hybrid one dimensional-convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) and attention-based bidirectional gated recurrent unit (Bi-GRU) neural network was proposed to detect sand gravel moisture content with NIR spectrum. Two learners, namely, 1D-CNN and Bi-GRU, were constructed to extract local abstract information and sequence position information from the spectrum, respectively. In the 1D-CNN learner, multiple kernels CNN layers and one dimensional-separable convolution layers were conjunct to improve model accuracy and reduce network parameters. In the Bi-GRU learner, a multi-head self-attention mechanism was appended to evaluate the weights of the output features extracted by Bi-GRU layers. The proposed model achieved the best prediction results in LUCAS dataset (R2 greater than 0.75, RPD greater than 2.0) and our sand gravel spectral dataset (R2 = 0.96, RPD = 5.06) compared to other deep learning and conventional spectroscopy analysis methods. In addition, the top ten characteristic wavelength points of sand gravel were identified. These can be used to choose a discrete spectrum measuring instrument, which has a relatively low cost.