Secure Image Communication Over Cooperative Wireless Networks Employing DF Relays

Dependency on wireless communications has been increasing dramatically in recent years and so has the need for the security of the data exchanged over wireless networks. This paper conducts the wireless transmission of an image encrypted over 3 stages: a Rule 30 Cellular Automata (CA) S-box, a Mersenne Twister-generated encryption key, and an Intel's Math Kernel Library (MKL) S-box. The transmission is done over a cooperative network employing 3 decode-and-forward (DF) relays with BPSK modulation and utilizing a convolutional coding scheme. Various performance evaluation metrics are conducted for the secure transmission and encryption scheme, showing comparable or superior results compared with the literature.