ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the hardware design technologies that enable digital image watermarking for Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) chips along with the hardware-software co-design in Xilinx System Generator (XSG). Development of real-time watermarking includes two steps: algorithm development and simulation and hardware implementation and testing. The chapter aims to compare various hardware watermarking implementation approaches using FPGA, DSP, and ASIC boards in spatial, transform, and hybrid domains. Thus, new hardware-based implementation approaches are required for the types of advanced watermarking techniques. Some hardware-based watermarking implementations are hardware–software co-designed to save power consumption and time. These watermarking techniques may be by the Least Significant Bit substitution, additive watermarking, Spread Spectrum-based watermarking, and reversible watermarking technique. The chapter presents the design and implementation flow of hardware–software co-simulation processes using prototype tools such as XSG and MATLAB-Simulink.
