| CPC G06V 20/95 (2022.01) [G06T 5/70 (2024.01); H04L 9/3278 (2013.01); G06T 2207/10064 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
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1. A method of authenticating an item, comprising:
randomly distributing one or more types of edible fluorescent particles on to an area of an item (Area), thus generating a physical unclonable function on the item based on locations of the edible fluorescent particles and illumination wavelength;
applying light to the Area;
capturing one or more images from the Area;
binarizing each of the one or more images by associating a “1” or a “0” to each pixel in the one or more images whereby a “1” is assigned to a pixel representing a local highest fluorescent intensity within each of the edible fluorescent particles and a “0” is assigned to all other pixels, thereby determining a spatial location based on location of a pixel with the maximum intensity for each edible fluorescent particle;
generating a cryptographic pattern from the one or more captured images based on the determined spatial locations by a host processing system;
communicating the cryptographic pattern to a remote processing system having a plurality of cryptographic keys in a database each uniquely associated with a corresponding item;
comparing the cryptographic pattern with the plurality of cryptographic keys in the database; and
communicating a positive evaluation for authentication to the host processing system if a match is found between one of the plurality of cryptographic keys and the communicated cryptographic pattern, else communicating a negative evaluation,
wherein the one or more types of edible fluorescent particles are chosen from the group consisting of enhanced cyan fluorescent protein (eCFP), enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP), enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (eYFP), and mKate2 (far-red) fluorescent protein.
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