Robust optimization of convolutional neural networks with a uniform experiment design method: a case of phonocardiogram testing in patients with heart diseases

Background Heart sound measurement is crucial for analyzing and diagnosing patients with heart diseases. This study employed phonocardiogram signals as the input signal for heart disease analysis due to the accessibility of the respective method. This study referenced preprocessing techniques proposed by other researchers for the conversion of phonocardiogram signals into characteristic images composed using frequency subband. Image recognition was then conducted through the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), in order to classify the predicted of phonocardiogram signals as normal or abnormal. However, CNN requires the tuning of multiple hyperparameters, which entails an optimization problem for the hyperparameters in the model. To maximize CNN robustness, the uniform experiment design method and a science-based methodical experiment design were used to optimize CNN hyperparameters in this study. Results An artificial intelligence prediction model was constructed using CNN, and the uniform experiment design method was proposed to acquire hyperparameters for optimal CNN robustness. The results indicate Filters ($${X}_{1}$$ X 1 ), Stride ($${X}_{3}$$ X 3 ), Activation functions ($${X}_{6}$$ X 6 ), and Dropout ($${X}_{7}$$ X 7 ) to be significant factors considerably influencing the ability of CNN to distinguish among heart sound states. Finally, the confirmation experiment was conducted, and the hyperparameter combination for optimal model robustness was Filters ($${X}_{1}$$ X 1 ) = 32, Kernel Size ($${X}_{2})$$ X 2 ) = 3 × 3, Stride ($${X}_{3}$$ X 3 ) = (1,1), Padding ($${X}_{4})$$ X 4 ) as same, Optimizer ($${X}_{5})$$ X 5 ) as the stochastic gradient descent, Activation functions ($${X}_{6}$$ X 6 ) as relu, and Dropout ($${X}_{7}$$ X 7 ) = 0.544. With this combination of parameters, the model had an average prediction accuracy rate of 0.787 and standard deviation of 0. Conclusion In this study, phonocardiogram signals were used for the early prediction of heart diseases. The science-based and methodical uniform experiment design was used for the optimization of CNN hyperparameters to construct a CNN with optimal robustness. The results revealed that the constructed model exhibited robustness and an acceptable accuracy rate. Other literature has failed to address hyperparameter optimization problems in CNN; a method is subsequently proposed for robust CNN optimization, thereby solving this problem.