Multi-image compression-encryption scheme based on quaternion discrete fractional Hartley transform and improved pixel adaptive diffusion

Abstract

A new multi-image encryption scheme based on quaternion discrete fractional Hartley transform (QDFrHT) and an improved pixel adaptive diffusion is proposed, which can simultaneously increase the encryption capacity and reduce the consumption of keys. In the proposed scheme, the QDFrHT is proposed to generalize the discrete fractional Hartley transform to quaternion transform domain and then applied to multi-image encryption. The original images are compressed into four fusion images by discrete cosine transform (DCT) and Zigzag operations and then the resulting four images are represented as quaternion algebra. Afterward, the quaternion signal is processed with the proposed QDFrHT and the double random phase encoding technique. To enhance the security of the algorithm, the plaintext-related pixel adaptive diffusion and the pixel scrambling operation based on chaotic systems are followed to obtain the final encryption image. Different from the traditional cryptosystem whose secret keys are dependent on the plaintext, the designed cryptosystem ensures the sensitivity of the cryptosystem to plaintext while the selection of the secret keys is independent on plaintext by introducing an improved diffusion mechanism. Numerical experiments verify the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed multi-image compression and encryption scheme.