Sub-band exchange DWT based image fusion algorithm for enhanced security

Transmission of critical data over the link, in the presence of an attacker has augmented the demand for secure communication. Particularly in the military field, exchange of classified images has to be executed with extreme caution. Advanced digital technologies require encryption, authentication and key distribution techniques to facilitate reliable and secure communication. In this paper, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) Sub-band Exchange based color image fusion scheme for enhanced security is proposed. In this method, the horizontal and vertical sub-bands of two colored images are replaced by chrominance information of each other. This permits generation of uniquely fused gray-scale textured images. This method facilitates fused images which are extremely difficult to intercept by the attacker, since the probability of getting hold on all the information pertaining to one single image is negligible. Also, this method offers reduced bandwidth utilization and less transmission time as it converts colored images to compressed textured gray-scale images. In addition to proposing a novel image fusion technique and compression scheme, this paper illustrates detailed analysis of the algorithm.