FPGA implementation of image steganography algorithms using generalized exploiting modification direction and pixel segmentation strategy

The generalized exploiting modification direction (GEMD) steganography algorithm is an enhancement of the exploiting modification direction (EMD) algorithm to hide a high payload capacity with maintaining the quality of the stego-image. This paper proposed a developed GEMD image steganography algorithm using improved pixel segmentation strategy with an indicator bit (PSS-IB) to overcome the drawbacks of the previous EMD algorithms. The proposed algorithm segments each block of pixels of the cover image into vector of coordinate area (VCA), an indicator bit (IB) and vector modification area (VMA). The VCA vector is kept unchanged, the IB is flipped if required and the VMA vector is modified. The VCA vector is segmented into “n” vectors to carry the secret data. The modified VMA vector is obtained by applying the GEMD algorithm on these vectors. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm is designed and FPGA implemented using Xilinx System Generator (XSG) on Spartan 3E Kit. The experimental results prove that, the proposed algorithm has high embedding rate, high embedding payload capacity, less computational complexity and keeping high stego-image quality compared to previous work.