Concordia University researcher uses AI to identify counterfeit coins

A researcher at Montreal's Concordia University and her team have developed an innovative technique for accurately identifying counterfeit coins using artificial intelligence (AI).

A researcher at Montreal's Concordia University and her team have developed an innovative technique for accurately identifying counterfeit coins using artificial intelligence (AI).

The techniques used by fraudsters to produce counterfeit coins are becoming increasingly sophisticated, sometimes confounding even the most experienced experts, but AI could change the game. Solicited by the Danish police, Maryam Sharifi Rad — a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University's Centre for Studies in Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence — and her team set about the task.

"It's a problem that very directly affects the economy and public finances," the researcher said. "I was keen to push back the limits of technology to improve the security and protection of our monetary systems."

To get started, the research team digitized a large number of genuine and counterfeit coins in high resolution. Obtaining counterfeit coins from several countries was quite a challenge, according to the researcher, since most of them had been seized by police forces around the world.

The 2D images were then analyzed with the help of technology developed by the researchers based on machine learning and image mining.

By searching each piece for irregularities and flaws often undetectable to the naked eye, the AI was able to pinpoint with great precision which pieces were genuine and which were not.

"It was really fascinating to see that AI was really able to detect extremely subtle differences between parts. Thanks to this advanced image processing method, we achieved a 99 per cent success rate," Sharifi Rad said.