Open Access

ARTICLE

A Highly Secured Image Encryption Scheme using Quantum Walk and Chaos

Muhammad Islam Kamran¹, Muazzam A. Khan¹, Suliman A. Alsuhibany², Yazeed Yasin Ghadi³, Arshad⁴, Jameel Arif¹, Jawad Ahmad^5,*

1 Department of Computer Science, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan
2 Department of Computer Science, College of Computer, Qassim University, Buraydah, 51452, Saudi Arabia
3 Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Al Ain University, Abu Dhabi, 15551, UAE
4 Institute for Energy and Environment, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G1 1XQ, UK
5 School of Computing, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT, UK

* Corresponding Author: Jawad Ahmad. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2022, 73(1), 657-672. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2022.028876

Received 20 February 2022; Accepted 30 March 2022; Issue published 18 May 2022

Abstract

The use of multimedia data sharing has drastically increased in the past few decades due to the revolutionary improvements in communication technologies such as the 4th generation (4G) and 5th generation (5G) etc. Researchers have proposed many image encryption algorithms based on the classical random walk and chaos theory for sharing an image in a secure way. Instead of the classical random walk, this paper proposes the quantum walk to achieve high image security. Classical random walk exhibits randomness due to the stochastic transitions between states, on the other hand, the quantum walk is more random and achieve randomness due to the superposition, and the interference of the wave functions. The proposed image encryption scheme is evaluated using extensive security metrics such as correlation coefficient, entropy, histogram, time complexity, number of pixels change rate and unified average intensity etc. All experimental results validate the proposed scheme, and it is concluded that the proposed scheme is highly secured, lightweight and computationally efficient. In the proposed scheme, the values of the correlation coefficient, entropy, mean square error (MSE), number of pixels change rate (NPCR), unified average change intensity (UACI) and contrast are 0.0069, 7.9970, 40.39, 99.60%, 33.47 and 10.4542 respectively.

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Keywords

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