3-D Printed Object Authentication Based on Printing Noise and Digital Signature

With the development of 3-D printing and reverse engineering, the protection of intellectual property of 3-D printed objects is becoming a prominent problem. In order to authenticate 3-D printed objects, an authentication scheme based on printing noise and digital signature is proposed. First, the noises introduced in the 3-D printing and observation are investigated. Thereafter, a special authentication mark is designed for extracting the printing noise. Based on this, a 3-D printed object authentication framework is built and it is composed of two processes-registration and verification. In the registration, the printing noise of the authentication mark is extracted and signed by digital signature. While in the verification, the signature is verified and then the printing noise of the authentication mark is extracted. After that, the extracted printing noise is matched with the one acquired in the registration. Experimental results and analysis show that the proposed scheme can reliably accomplish the authentication of the 3-D printed object with high precision and that it can achieve high security and good robustness.