Hidden image separation from incomplete image mixtures by independent component analysis

It is known that the independent component analysis (ICA) (also called blind source separation) can be applied only if the number of received signals (sensors) is at least equal to the number of mixed sources, contained in the sensor signals. In this paper an application of the ICA is proposed for hidden (secured) image transmission by communication channels. We assume that only a single image mixture is transmitted. A friendly receiver contains the remaining original sources and therefore it can separate the hidden image of lowest energy. The influence of two nonlossless signal reduction stages, compression by principal component analysis and signal quantization, onto the separation ability is tested. Constraints of the mixing process are discussed that make impossible the hidden image separation without the key images