A Microwave-Based Invisible “Watermarking” Emulated by an Embedded Set of Electromagnetic Material in a Plastic Card

Perambur Neelakanta; Swee-Hock Lim

doi:10.4236/jemaa.2010.23018

Home > Journals > Engineering | Physics & Mathematics > JEMAA

Journal of Electromagnetic Analysis and ... > Vol.2 No.3, March 2010

A Microwave-Based Invisible “Watermarking” Emulated by an Embedded Set of Electromagnetic Material in a Plastic Card ()

Perambur Neelakanta, Swee-Hock Lim

DOI: 10.4236/jemaa.2010.23018 PDF HTML 4,668 Downloads 8,202 Views

Abstract

This article describes a passive, economical strategy towards enhancing the security feature of conventional plastic cards by embedding a set of electromagnetic (EM) material that emulates an invisible “watermarking”. This is an overlay strategy to prevailing security measures and consists of incorporating (invisibly embedding, say by ink-jet printing or otherwise) a set of foil/film-like grids of electromagnetic (EM) material (such as high-μ material or high-conductivity metal) within the cross-section of the card. The test-card when exposed to a suitable excitation of microwave (ISM band) excitation, the embedment of EM material in the card is rendered to yield distinct path-loss to the traversing EM energy. That is, by making each element of embedment a grid-frame made of vertical or set of horizontal strips, (relative to the plane of polarization of EM excitation), each grid-frame will offer high (logic 1) or low (logic 0) transmissions when the card is swiped across the EM field. By sensing appropriately, this differentiable EM attenuation across the card would depict an output signal annunciating the presence of a binary-logic encoding in the embedded “watermarking”. The proposed effort augments the existing security features of a plastic card design and robustly reduces the chances of malpractices, such as plastic card counterfeiting and misuse. The concept-design as proposed is positively verified through experimental test cards and also justified with theoretical considerations.

Keywords

Microwave-Based Watermarking, Plastic Cards, Electromagnetic Materials

Share and Cite:

P. Neelakanta and S. Lim, "A Microwave-Based Invisible “Watermarking” Emulated by an Embedded Set of Electromagnetic Material in a Plastic Card," Journal of Electromagnetic Analysis and Applications, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2010, pp. 121-127. doi: 10.4236/jemaa.2010.23018.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	P. S. Neelakanta, “Handbook of electromagnetic materials – Monolithic and composite versions and their applications,” FL: CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1995.
[2]	R. Rida, L. Yang, R. Vyas, and M. M. Tentzeris, “Conductive inkjet-printed antennas on flexible low-cost paper-based substrates for RFID and WSN applications,” IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 13–23, 2009.
[3]	ISO Standard 18000–Part 4: Air interface communications at 2.45 GHz.
[4]	F. Ros, J. Borla, F. Leclerc, R. Harba, and N. Launay, “An industrial watermarking process for plastic card supports,” Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT’06), Mumbai, pp. 2809– 2814, 15–17 December 2006.
[5]	S. Ramo, J. R. Whinnery, and T. V. Duzer, “Fields and waves communication electronics,” Wiley Eastern Private Limited, New Delhi, 1995.
[6]	A. F. Harvey, “Microwave engineering,” Academic Press, London, pp. 601–605, 1963.
[7]	H. Jasik, “Antenna engineering handbook,” McGraw-Hill Book Corporation, New York, Chapter 32, pp. 35–40. 1961.
[8]	P. S. Neelakanta, A. K. Stampalia, and D. DeGroff, “An actively-controlled microwave reflecting surface with binary pattern modulation,” Microwave Journal, Vol. 46, No. 12, pp. 22–36, 2003.