Counterfeiting can prove costly for just about any industry, from the food and beverage sector to the automotive sector and everything in between. In addition to the costs associated with counterfeit products, there is also brand reputation and potential hazards to consider.

In recent years, products manufactured illegally have threatened the health of consumers, from counterfeit toys containing lead to counterfeit brand contact lenses that have caused wearers to experience a host of eye injuries.

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As such, technology has been quick to emerge to combat such fraudulent items from being sold to unwitting consumers.

Follow along with GlobalSpec as we examine, in a two-part feature, some of the technologies being used to prevent counterfeiting products, ranging from food and alcohol to pharmaceuticals.

Fluorescent tags

An invisible tagging system designed to enhance the tracking of 3D objects has been developed by a team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

According to its developers, BrightMarker is an invisible, fluorescent tag concealed in 3D-printed objects — such as a ball or container, for instance — that shows potential for enhancing motion tracking, virtual reality (VR) and object detection.

The research team explained that to create a BrightMarker, users download the CSAIL software plugin for 3D modeling programs — like Blender — and place the tag within the user’s design. Once the tag has been placed, the design is exported as an STL file for 3D printing. Because fluorescent filaments are incorporated into the printer, users can 3D print the object with the concealed tag, but the researchers noted that the markers need to be embedded into an object before it is 3D printed — not added to existing items.

Further, the fluorescent materials allow the tags to produce light at a specific near-infrared wavelength, thereby making them viewable using high-contrast infrared cameras. Additionally, the team created two attachable hardware configurations — one for augmented reality (AR) and VR headsets, and one for smartphones — that can be used for detecting the imperceptible-to-the-naked-eye BrightMarkers.

The researchers suggest that Brightmarkers would lead to the production of tamper-proof objects that can be embedded with metadata. The researchers also note that BrightMarkers could be implemented into wearables that follow limb movements or used to track products across the supply chain.

For more information about BrightMarkers, watch the accompanying video that appears courtesy of MIT CSAIL.

Edible tags

Scientists at Japan’s Osaka University have developed edible tags, or QR codes, that are embedded within food that reveal information about the food such as its ingredients and its source.

Using a method called “interiqr,” a tag is embedded within 3D-printed food without changing its outward appearance or taste and without having to destroy the food in order to scan the QR code. The Osaka University team used the method on 3D-printed cookies to demonstrate the technology.

The QR code used in the experiments was composed of the cookie itself, thereby eliminating any issues with taste or appearance. Further, the researchers demonstrated that the information from the QR code could be made visible to everyone along the food supply chain — manufacturers, retailers, consumers — using a simple backlight.

More information about the technology is available in the accompanying video, which appears courtesy of Osaka University.

Edible silk tags

To prevent the counterfeiting of alcohol, researchers from Purdue University are working to develop an edible fluorescent silk tag featuring a QR code to authenticate whiskey.

Placed inside a shot of whiskey, the edible QR code tag could be scanned by a smartphone to confirm the authenticity of the whiskey and other alcoholic spirits, which are vulnerable to counterfeiting.

Source: Purdue University

According to the Purdue team, the QR code on the fluorescent silk tag is imperceptible to the naked eye, edible and does not affect the taste of the whiskey.

To create the tags, the researchers processed fluorescent silk cocoons from silkworms to produce a biopolymer that can be manipulated into assorted patterns for encoding the information.

A nose for booze

Because alcohol is one consumer product vulnerable to counterfeiting, it's only natural that more than one solution for preventing counterfeiting alcohol would be developed. As such, researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have developed an electronic nose, or e-nose, to sniff out whiskey imposters.

While whiskey can usually be authenticated by trained professionals or via chemical analysis, both approaches can potentially be error prone and time-consuming. Consequently, the researchers developed an e-nose prototype, dubbed NOS.E.

Designed to distinguish among brands, origins and styles, NOS.E simulates the human olfactory system and relies on eight gas sensors to identify the different odors in a vial of whiskey. From this assessment, the sensor array creates a unique signal matrix based on the various odor molecules it encounters. That data is then sent to a computer for analysis where a machine learning algorithm capable of recognizing characteristics of whiskey is used.

Not limited to the alcohol industry, NOS.E could potentially be used to identify counterfeit items like high-end perfume or for the detection of illegal animal parts sold on the black market, such as black rhino horns, as well as for health applications and disease detection.

Check back with GlobalSpec in the coming days for part two of this feature, which will cover technology for combatting counterfeiting in pharmaceutical and other consumer products.