Image encryption with quantum cellular neural network

Jinjing Shi, Shuhui Chen, Tian Chen, Tongge Zhao, Jiuqi Tang, Qin Li, Chunlin Yu, Heyuan Shi

Abstract: A novel quantum image encryption scheme is proposed based on quantum cellular neural network with quantum operations and hyper-chaotic system, aiming to optimize security, computation complexity and decrypted image definition. The quantum operations, including quantum affine transforms, quantum SWAP and quantum CNOT gates, are controlled by hyper-chaotic signals to scramble image pixel coordinates and values, respectively. From our experiments, this scheme effectively reduces the computation complexity to O(n), and can completely recover the correct decrypted images under the premise of ensuring algorithm security. In addition, each stage of processing images can be implemented with quantum circuits, and the design circuits are experimentally examined for initial quantum image preparation. This means that the proposed scheme could be potentially implemented on quantum devices.