Robust Blind Image Watermarking Using an Adaptive Trimmed Mean Operator

In this paper, we present a robust watermarking technique based on a DCT-domain watermarking approach and an order statistic(OS) filter. The proposed technique inserts one watermark into each of four coefficients within a 2 ${\times}$ 2 block which is scanned on DCT coefficients in the zig-zag ordering from the medium frequency range. The detection algorithm uses an adaptive trimmed mean operator as a local estimator of the embedded watermark to obtain the desired robustness in the presence of additive Gaussian noise and JPEG compression attacks. The performance is analyzed through statistical analysis and numerical experiments. It is shown that the robustness properties against additive noise and JPEG compression attacks are more enhanced than the previous techniques.