Dual Mode VLSI Architecture for Spread Spectrum Image Watermarking using Binary Watermark

Digital watermarking applications include content protection for audio and video content, forensics and piracy deterrence, content filtering, communication of ownership and copyrights, document and image security, broadcast monitoring and many more. Spread spectrum based watermarking techniques improves robustness against image processing attacks along with geometric distortions. This paper propose a robust image watermarking algorithm which have the provision to implement spatial or transform domain watermarking using spread spectrum modulation. An FPGA based VLSI architecture have been designed for spatial and transform domain(Fast Walsh-Hadamard) watermarking technique. The encoder architecture facilitates dual mode approach which incorporates the spatial and transform domain, where user have the flexibility to select the respective domain. This approach can be applied for authorized as well as reliable communication for real-time systems. (C) 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela