Pixel Prediction-Based Image Steganography Using Crow Search Algorithm-Based Deep Belief Network Approach

Abstract

Securing the confidentiality of patient information using the image steganography process has gained more attention in the research community. However, embedding the patient information is a major task in the steganography process due to the complexity in identifying the pixel features. Thus, an effective Crow Search Algorithm-based deep belief network (CSA-DBN) is proposed for embedding the information in the medical image. Initially, the appropriate pixels and the features, like pixel coverage, wavelet energy, edge information, and texture features, such as local binary pattern (LBP) and local directional pattern (LDP), are extracted from each pixel. The proposed CSA-DBN utilizes the feature vector and identifies the suitable pixels used for embedding. The patient information is embedded into the image by using the embedding strength and the DWT coefficient. Finally, the embedded information is extracted using the DWT coefficient. The analysis of the proposed CSA-DBN approach is done based on the performance metrics, such as correlation coefficient, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), and structural similarity index (SSIM) that acquired the average values as 0.9471, 24.836[Formula: see text]dB, and 0.4916 in the presence of salt and pepper noise and 0.9741, 57.832[Formula: see text]dB, and 0.9766 in the absence of noise.