Detection Method for Counterfeit Currency Based on Bit-Plane Slicing Technique

Counterfeiting and forging currencies is a serious threat to any economy. Even though currency exists as a variation of coins, banknotes, and electronic data, many economies remain threatened by counterfeiting which is made possible by the ongoing technological advancements in reprographic equipment available to the general public. Clearly, counterfeit currency detection is not a task that can be neglected. Digital image processing is one of the most common and effective techniques used to distinguish counterfeit banknotes from genuine ones. A new approach is presented in this paper using the bit-plane slicing technique to extract the most significant data from counterfeit banknote images with the application of an edge detector algorithm. The proposed technique consists of decomposing original images of 256 gray levels into their equivalent 8 binary images. This is useful in analyzing the relative importance contributed by each bit of the original image. Higher order bit levels are evaluated for grayscale banknote images with the application of Canny edge detection algorithm. The results are then compared with genuine banknotes and with other existing techniques used for detecting counterfeit notes. Unlike existing research, it was observed that the edges obtained using bit-plane sliced images are more accurate and can be detected faster than obtaining them from the original image without being sliced. The detection of counterfeit currency was also achieved by following the process of using Canny edge detection, image segmentation, and feature extraction.