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US 10,467,447 B1Granted
Dendritic structures and tags
AssigneeArizona Board of Regents, A Body Corporate of the State of Arizona Acting for and On Behalf of Arizona State University
InventorMichael N. Kozicki
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The disclosure features dendritic tags, and methods and systems for fabricating and using such tags. The methods can include obtaining at least one image of a dendritic tag attached to an article, analyzing the at least one image to identify a set of features associated with the dendritic tag, and comparing the set of features to stored information to identify the article.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- an illumination source configured to direct incident light to a dendritic structure in a tag attached to an article or to a container comprising the article;
- a detector configured to obtain an image by measuring incident light reflected from the dendritic structure;
- and
- at least one electronic processor configured to:
- segment the image into a plurality of regions and assign a binary value to each region based on the portion of the dendritic structure in each region;
- construct a binary spatial representation of the dendritic structure based on the plurality of regions;
- and
- compare the binary spatial representation to reference information for a plurality of dendritic structures to determine information about the article,
- wherein the detector is configured to obtain multiple images of the dendritic structure, each one of the multiple images corresponding to illumination of the dendritic structure from a different direction, and wherein the at least one electronic processor is configured to:
- analyze the multiple images to identify patterns of reflected light from the dendritic structure corresponding to each of the different illumination directions;
- and
- compare the patterns of reflected light to the reference information for a plurality of dendritic structures to determine the information about the article.
9 more elements
A system, comprising:
- an illumination source configured to direct incident light to a dendritic structure in a tag attached to an article or to a container comprising the article;
- a detector configured to obtain an image by measuring incident light reflected from the dendritic structure;
- and
- at least one electronic processor configured to:
- segment the image into a plurality of regions and assign a binary value to each region based on the portion of the dendritic structure in each region;
- construct a binary spatial representation of the dendritic structure based on the plurality of regions;
- and
- compare the binary spatial representation to reference information for a plurality of dendritic structures to determine information about the article,
- wherein the detector is configured to obtain multiple images of the dendritic structure, wherein each one of the multiple images corresponds to illumination of the dendritic structure with incident light from the illumination source along a different direction, and
- wherein the at least one electronic processor is configured to authenticate the dendritic structure in the tag based on changes in light reflected from the dendritic structure along the different illumination directions.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.