FFT-Based Dual-Mode Blind Watermarking for Hiding Binary Logos and Color Images in Audio

Watermarking technology is a feasible approach for preventing copyright infringement. The practicality of the watermark itself affects the acceptance and penetration of relevant applications. In this study, a dual-mode fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based audio watermarking framework was devised to achieve both binary and numeric data hiding concurrently using the respective modulations. We demonstrate that: 1) the adaptive magnitude modulation (AMM) applied to large-magnitude FFT coefficients is competent to deliver efficient and effective binary watermarking at a rate of 678.46 bits per second; 2) the phase modulation (PM) in charge of embedding pixel values into medium-size FFT coefficients can operate at a rate of 508.85 numbers per second. With a tactical selection of embedding positions and strengths, both FFT-based AMM and PM exhibit exceptional robustness against commonly encountered attacks. According to the perceptual evaluation of audio quality (PEAQ) metric, the resulting audio quality remains indistinguishable from the original audio, even at the aforementioned high payload capacity.