Media contact: Kristin Palm | [email protected] | 313-593-5542
The market for counterfeit electronic components that go into cars, airplanes, trains and other vehicles is likely in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But this underground industry is not just a headache for companies and consumers. It’s a huge safety risk. While no one wants to drive or ride in a vehicle that has fake parts, many commuters and travelers probably already have.
Two University of Michigan-Dearborn researchers are developing a system to make it easier to identify this rogue equipment. Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Hafiz Malik and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Alireza Mohammadi recently received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support their work.
“3D printing makes it simple to create counterfeit batteries, motors, sensors, circuit boards and more, which are then stamped with fake serial numbers or logos,” explains Mohammadi. In 2023, a Portuguese airline’s discovery of a counterfeit part in one of its planes sent waves through the industry. Ultimately, dozens of airlines, including all major U.S. carriers, discovered they had aircraft in the skies with counterfeit parts.
Malik and Mohammadi’s system would collect “digital fingerprints” — the unique patterns contained in a device’s electrical output . Those fingerprints could then be compared to a vast digital library to determine whether a component is authentic.
Not only will the researchers’ system make vehicles safer, it could speed up repairs. That’s because their system will also be able to identify the source of everyday malfunctions more quickly than current diagnostic tools. “No matter what the source of the malfunction in the electronic control unit, the technology can pick the fault up in a very fast and targeted way,” says Mohammadi.
They expect the time savings to be significant. “We’re hoping to shrink the diagnostic time from 90 minutes to 30 minutes,” explains Malik “That’s a very big deal in today’s world, where maintenance of large fleets of delivery vehicles for, say, Amazon or FedEx, is essential to their profitability.”
Malik and Mohammadi began developing their system in 2019. The federal grant will support their work for the next three years. They’ll be working with industry partners and, when the grant project is complete, expect to have prototypes ready to bring to market.
Read more about Malik and Mohammadi’s project.
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