Work

Integrating biopolymer design with physical unclonable functions for anticounterfeiting and product traceability in agriculture

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: Smallholder farmers and manufacturers in the Agri-Food sector face substantial challenges because of increasing circulation of counterfeit products (e.g., seeds), for which current countermeasures are implemented mainly at the secondary packaging level, and are generally vulnerable because of limited security guarantees. Here, by integrating biopolymer design with physical unclonable functions (PUFs), we propose a cryptographic protocol for seed authentication using biodegradable and miniaturized PUF tags made of silk microparticles. By simply drop casting a mixture of variant silk microparticles on a seed surface, tamper-evident PUF tags can be seamlessly fabricated on a variety of seeds, where the unclonability comes from the stochastic assembly of spectrally and visually distinct silk microparticles in the tag. Unique, reproducible, and unpredictable PUF codes are generated from both Raman mapping and microscopy imaging of the silk tags. Together, the proposed technology offers a highly secure solution for anticounterfeiting and product traceability in agriculture.

Source: Science Advances

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf1978

Authors: Hui Sun, Saurav Maji, Anantha P. Chandrakasan, Benedetto Marelli

Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security

Subfield: Hardware and Architecture

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Zero hunger, Responsible consumption and production

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $4,500