Progressive watermarking techniques using genetic algorithms

An innovative watermarking scheme based on progressive transmission with genetic algorithms (GAS) is proposed. We implement the watermarking embedding and extraction systems in the transform domain, and apply the JPEG spectral selection mode for scalable transmission of the watermarked image. By employing a GA with a proper fitness function into the watermarking system, both the watermark imperceptibility and watermark robustness requirements are considered and optimized. The number of embedded bits, or the watermark capacity, is much larger than that in other existing algorithms in the literature. Also, the watermark capacity in the proposed algorithm lies within the theoretical limit. In addition, the embedded watermark can be partly extracted at the receiver side even when the watermarked image is being transmitted. Simulation results show both the robustness and the effectiveness of progressive transmission under different attacking schemes and different bandwidth variations. The proposed scheme is directly applicable to scalable coding of multimedia, such as MPEG-4 scalable video coding.