Progressive watermarking techniques with genetic algorithms

An innovative watermarking scheme based on progressive transmission with genetic algorithms (GA) is proposed. We implement the watermarking embedding and extraction system in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain, and apply the JPEG spectral selection mode for progressive transmission. By employing GA with a proper fitness function into the watermarking system, both the watermark imperceptibility and watermark robustness requirements are considered and optimized. In addition, the embedded watermark can be partly extracted in 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.