A Hybrid Chaos–AES–Visual Cryptography Framework with Burrows–Wheeler Transform-Based Compression for Secure and Efficient Image Transmission

Abstract

Secure transmission of digital images over open networks requires encryption schemes that balance security, efficiency, and bandwidth utilization. This paper presents a hybrid image transmission framework that integrates Burrows–Wheeler Transform (BWT) based lossless compression with chaos-assisted AES encryption and visual cryptography. The input image is first compressed to reduce redundancy and transmission overhead. A chaotic map is then employed for sensitive key generation and permutation, followed by AES encryption to ensure strong diffusion characteristics. To further enhance transmission security, the encrypted data is divided into multiple shares using a visual cryptography scheme, ensuring that individual shares reveal no meaningful information. Authorized reconstruction is possible only with correct cryptographic keys and valid shares. Experimental evaluation demonstrates high entropy, low correlation, strong resistance to statistical and differential attacks, and acceptable computational complexity, confirming the suitability of the proposed scheme for secure image transmission.