Evolution of mapping functions for image encryption using Evolvable Hardware

The security of digital images attracts much attention recently. For images the transformation can be implemented at two levels, the first one consists of the pixel value permutation and the second one consists of position permutation. In this paper, we propose an encryption scheme for digital images with new pixel position permutation method based on Evolvable Hardware (EHW). In this work, we use EHW to find an equation for mapping functions for encryption and decryption process. The main contribution of this work is that we can evolve arbitrary mapping functions by using EHW. Therefore, there is no limit in selecting map functions. This method of permutation is very fast and cost effective for implementation on reconfigurable devices like FPGAs.