This article reports on a project in which search prefilters developed from spectral data collected on two 6700 Thermo-Nicolet FTIR spectrometers were able to identify the respective manufacturing plant and the production line of an automotive vehicle from its clear coat paint smear, using IR transmission spectra collected on a Bio-Rad 40A or Bio-Rad 60 FTIR spectrometer.
All four spectrometers were equipped with DTGS detectors. An approach based on instrumental line functions was used to transfer the classification model between the Thermo-Nicolet and Bio-Rad instruments. A total of 209 IR spectra of clear coat paint smears comprising the training set were collected, using two Thermo-Nicolet 6700 IR spectrometers. The validation set consisted of 242 IR spectra of clear coats obtained using two Bio-Rad FTIR instruments. (publisher abstract modified)