This invention relates to methods and apparatuses for testing the authenticity of printed objects, in particular printed sheet material, by measuring light emanating from, in particular reflected or transmitted by, an object to be checked.
To increase forgery-proofness, objects, in particular bank notes, security documents, identification documents or documents of value, are printed in certain surface areas with suitable security inks that convey a certain color effect in the visible spectral region, i.e. in the wavelength region between about 400 nanometers and about 800 nanometers, and additionally have a reflection or transmission behavior characteristic of the particular security ink in invisible, e.g. ultraviolet or infrared, spectral regions. If a security document is imitated with the aid of a color copier, for example, the visible color effect of a printed surface area can be basically reproduced. However, since customary color particles do not have the spectral behavior in invisible spectral regions characteristic of special security inks, counterfeit security documents can generally be recognized by accordingly measuring their reflection or transmission behavior in invisible spectral regions.
Laid-open print JP 52-11992 describes a method and apparatus for testing the authenticity of bank notes. A bank note is irradiated with light from a broad-band light source. Light reflected or transmitted by a place on the bank note is measured in the visible and infrared spectral regions with two photodetectors of different spectral sensitivity. The output signals of the two photodetectors are amplified in a differential amplifier and evaluated in a following threshold and logic circuit. If the difference between the two output signals is within a predetermined range, the logic circuit delivers a binary signal that confirms authenticity or indicates a forgery. This check can be repeated at a plurality of places on the bank note, the authenticity of the note being confirmed when a corresponding signal is delivered by the logic circuit at all or most places.
This method has the disadvantage that the predetermined range of values must be readjusted in the course of the operating lifetime of the apparatus since the sensitivity or dark current of the two photodetectors generally changes to different extents due to aging effects so that the difference of the signals varies. In addition, this method can deliver false results when testing the authenticity in particular of documents soiled in some places or in the case of noisy measuring signals, since only binary evaluation of the difference of the two output signals and thus a yes/no decision on the authenticity of the document to be checked is effected at each place on the document to be checked.
Measurement with two photodetectors one of which is sensitive in the visible spectral region and the other in the infrared is moreover only suitable for testing printing inks having a steplike reflection or transmission course in the transition area between the visible and infrared spectral regions and a substantially constant course in the infrared spectral region.
In the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,491,243 the printed sheet material under test is illuminated with white light and the light reflected or transmitted by individual color areas of the sheet material detected by cells sensitive in the visible spectral region that each consist of a photoconductive element with a certain spectral sensitivity and a color filter disposed therebefore with a certain spectral permeability. The material used for the photoconductive elements is for example cadmium sulfide (CdS), which is sensitive to wavelengths below about 550 nanometers. The size of the area to be measured on the printed sheet material can be defined by a convergent lens mounted on a tubular casing.
By this measuring principle only the color of the sheet material is detected and checked by machine. This has the disadvantage that an imitation document showing the same color effect as a real document upon a visual inspection with the human eye cannot be recognized as a forgery using this measuring principle.
In addition, defining the size of the area to be measured on the sheet material by a lens mounted on the tubular casing is bulky and therefore opposes the requirement of a structure as compact as possible. In particular, a change of geometry involving high adjustment effort is required for every desired change of size of the area to be measured on the sheet material.
It is the problem of the invention to state a method allowing reliable and easily operated authenticity testing. In addition an apparatus is to be stated that permits reliable authenticity testing, has a compact structure and is easy to operate.
The individual solutions of the problem posed are based on the common inventive idea of selecting suitable spectral and/or spatial sections of a printed object and using them for testing the authenticity of the object. The corresponding methods and apparatuses permit reliable and easily operated authenticity testing along with a simple structure.
According to the invention it is provided in a method that light emanating from at least one place on the object to be checked is detected in spectral regions outside the visible spectral region.
This permits particularly precise determination of the spectral transmission or reflection behavior of the printed object to be checked in invisible spectral regions. It improves the methods known from the prior art to the effect that not only simple, e.g. steplike, spectral courses in a transition area between the visible and an invisible spectral region can be reliably detected but also any other type of spectral course in invisible spectral regions. It is thus in particular possible to detect special forgery-proof security inks having a spectral course in invisible spectral regions characteristic of the particular type of security ink. Testing the authenticity of objects printed with such special security inks using the methods known from the prior art, however, would yield insufficiently precise results.
Especially high ease of operation and reliability in testing the authenticity of printed objects is attained in particular by producing a test series for each defined spectral region and effecting the authenticity testing by comparing the produced test series. series. In advantageous fashion, two test series can additionally be adapted and then evaluated, as described in more detail below.
Another aspect of an inventive method for solving the problem posed consists in effecting the detection of light emanating from a printed object at a plurality of places on the object and producing a measured value for each defined spectral region at each place. Measurement is effected both on places located within a certain surface area of the object printed with security ink and on places located outside said surface area and generally only printed with an ink without any characteristic course in the defined spectral regions.
For each defined spectral region there are first and second test series consisting of the corresponding measured values. Light emanating from the object can be reflected, in particular diffusely reflected, and/or transmitted light. The actual authenticity testing is effected using the first and second test series. The two test series are for this purpose adapted to each other by converting the measured values of the first test series into values of an adapted series. The values of the adapted series have the property of deviating only slightly from the values of the second test series in defined areas. The stated defined areas are defined by the first and second test series having substantially an identical qualitative course there. The substantially identical qualitative course in the defined areas generally results from the spectral behavior of the printed object outside the surface area.
After adaptation of the two test series, the adapted series can be compared with the second test series to determine with high precision the surface area where the spectral behavior differs from the other areas of the printed object, and corresponding evaluation and authenticity testing by comparing the two adapted test series in this area can be effected.
The inventive method eliminates the influence of time-variant dark currents, amplification factors and sensitivities of the particular photodetectors. The spectral behavior of the surface area differing in the defined spectral regions can thus be analyzed quantitatively by e.g. forming the ratio or the difference of the two adapted series. This leads to reliable authenticity testing, on the one hand, and guarantees a high degree of high degree of ease of operation, on the other hand, since no adaptation of parameters for evaluation, such as threshold values for the difference of two detector signals, is necessary since the adaptation of the two test series for each object under test eliminates time-variant influences. In addition, falsification of the test result, in particular by locally limited soiling on the printed object, is clearly reduced since the influence of soiling is averaged out by the adaptation of the test series, in particular with the inclusion of measured values outside locally limited soiled areas.
An embodiment of an apparatus for testing the authenticity of printed objects is characterized in that the detection units provided for detecting light emanating from the object are sensitive in defined spectral regions outside the visible spectral region. The detection units can be in particular photosensitive elements, such as photodiodes, that are sensitive in the defined spectral regions. Optionally, a filter can be disposed before one or more photosensitive elements for additionally influencing the spectral sensitivity of the particular detection unit. Altogether, the inventive apparatus allows an especially compact, simple and cost-effective structure since it requires no additional, spectrally resolving optical elements, such as prisms, grids or the like. A further advantage is that the implementation of the individual components of the inventive apparatus involves very low effort for adjusting said components.
The inventive apparatus can be realized especially simply and cost-effectively if the light source provided for irradiating the object under examination has a broad-band spectrum that at least partly includes the defined spectral regions. Incandescent lamps are suitable, for example. This makes it unnecessary to use different individual light sources, such as light-emitting diodes with different spectral emission.
An especially preferred embodiment of the inventive apparatus provides that the detection units have side-by-side photosensitive elements. The photosensitive elements can be so disposed e.g. on a common carrier that the edges of the photosensitive elements adjoin. The carrier can be a ceramic substrate, for example. An advantage of these close side-by-side photosensitive elements is that any parallactic errors due to different positions of the elements are kept very low, i.e. both photosensitive elements see approximately the same detail of the object to be checked.
In a further preferred embodiment of the invention, parallactic errors can be avoided practically completely by the photosensitive elements being tandem mounted. The type and order of the elements is to be selected so that each photosensitive element is permeable to the light to be detected with the particular photosensitive elements therebehind. In a detector with for example two semiconductor-based elements sensitive in the infrared spectral region, a first element is thus disposed before a second element, the semiconductor material of the first element being selected so that its absorption edge is at smaller wavelengths than is the case with the semiconductor material of the second element therebehind.
A further aspect of an inventive apparatus for solving the problem posed is characterized in providing between object and detector at least one diaphragm for adjusting the size of an area to be measured on the object from which the light emanating from the object is detected by the detector. This makes it possible to realize an especially compact and cost-effective apparatus wherein the size of the area to be measured can be defined selectively and simply by the opening of the diaphragm and its distance from the object or detector. Distances and type of diaphragm are preferably to be selected so that the area to be measured on the object is large compared to irregularities on the object, for example creases, but small compared to surface areas on the object within which a characteristic spectral behavior is to be detected.
The invention will now be explained in more detail with reference to examples shown in figures, in which:
For selectively defining the size of an area to be measured on object 10 for a measuring process, diaphragm 15 is disposed in the beam path, being formed as a pin diaphragm in this example.
Detector 13 consists in the shown example of two tandem mounted detection units 14 each sensitive in different spectral regions. Detection units 14 each contain a photosensitive element, the photosensitive element closer to object 10 being permeable to those spectral regions in which the element therebehind is sensitive. The output signals produced by the photosensitive elements pass into evaluation unit 20 and are further processed there for testing the authenticity of object 10. Optionally, object 10 to be checked can be transported past the total sensor apparatus on transport device 11 (shown very schematically here). Object 10 can thus be transported for example at a certain transport speed, detector 13 performing a measurement of light reflected by object 10 at certain time intervals. Object 10 is thus scanned in the form of a track of side-by-side or possibly overlapping individual space domains of individual measurements. By corresponding storage of the measured values determined during measure-measurement at one place for the two defined spectral regions, a test series reflecting the reflection behavior of object 10 in dependence on the particular place of measurement is finally obtained for each of the two photosensitive elements.
Filter 17 permeable only in the relevant spectral regions is disposed before detection units 14 in this example. For measurements with photovoltaic cells sensitive in the infrared spectral region, a customary filter can thus be used to eliminate the influence of accordingly shorter-wave light. Otherwise, the comments on
In order to obtain especially reliable authenticity testing of objects printed with security inks, detection units 14 used in the shown examples can be photosensitive elements that are each sensitive in invisible spectral regions, e.g. in the infrared or ul-ultraviolet region. This obtains very precise and reliable determination of the spectral behavior hidden from the eye of object 10 under examination.
For authenticity testing on the basis of light from at least two spectral regions, light from one or more visible spectral regions can additionally be used according to the invention.
The measured values of first test series I1 are preferably converted into the values of adapted series I′1 by a linear transformation which is performed by multiplying the values of first test series I1 by first parameter a1 and then adding second parameter a2:
I′1=a1I1+a2.
This transformation takes account of different amplification factors or sensitivities by first parameter a1, on the one hand, and offset errors, for example in the form of different dark currents in the detector units, by second parameter a2, on the other hand. In addition, linear transformation is a conversion that can be easily realized by computing technology.
Parameters a1 and a2 are preferably determined from the measured values of test series I1 and I2 at places of local minimum I1j or I2j and adjacent local maximum I1k or I2k in defined area B. This method easily realized by computing technology allows especially simple and fast determination of parameters a1 and a2 required for adapting test series I1 and I2. The diagram of
a1=(I2k−I2j)/(I1k−I1j)
a2=<I2>−a1<I1>.
Variables <I1> and <I2> are the mean values of respective test series I1 and I2.
Alternatively, parameters a1 and a2 can also be determined by a so-called least-square-fit method. In a numerical method those parameters a1 and a2 are determined for which the sum of the square of the differences of the measured values of the adapted test series is minimized:
Σ(I2−I′1)2=minimal, where I′1=a1I1+a2.
This method has the advantage of especially high precision in adapting the two test series since the determination of parameters a1 and a2 required for adapting is effected over all or at least a certain subdomain of the values of the two series.
It is especially advantageous if the determination of parameters a1 and a2 is effected in two runs. In a first run, adaptation of the test series is first performed over all measured values of test series I1 and I2. Adapted test series I′1 and I2 are then compared with each other, measured value area A being determined which substantially matches the surface area of the printed object and where adapted test series I′1 and I2 deviate. To permit the difference of the spectral reflection or transmission behavior of the printed object in said measured value area A to be analyzed especially precisely both quantitatively and qualitatively, another adaptation of test series I1 and I2 is then performed in a second run. However, in said second run, parameters a1 and a2 are only determined including those measured values that are outside certain measured value area A, i.e. over the measured values in areas B.
The diagram shown in
Quantitative evaluation can be effected for example by forming the difference between the two adapted test series I2−I′1. The result of such difference formation is shown in FIG. 6. The amount of the difference between the two adapted test series in area A can now be used for authenticity testing as a measure of a spectral behavior of the printed object under examination deviating in area A.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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100 07 887 | Feb 2000 | DE | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP01/01844 | 2/19/2001 | WO | 00 | 11/7/2002 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO01/61654 | 8/23/2001 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20030123049 A1 | Jul 2003 | US |