Spatiotemporal chaos in improved cross coupled map lattice and its application in a bit-level image encryption scheme

Abstract In this paper, an improved cross coupled map lattice (CCML) which is derived from CCML is proposed. The experimental analysis of CCML shows that it exhibits weak or even lose chaotic behaviors in a large range of parameters. To enhance its chaotic performance, the new model changes the internal chaotic map of CCML from the logistics map to the tent map and introduces the module operations to limit the obtained value. The theoretical analysis and experimental results prove that the proposed model has a broad chaotic regime over an extensive range of system parameters, positive Lyapunov exponents, higher information entropies and lower mutual information values when compared to CCML, which are highly suitable for chaos-based image encryption. Moreover, this paper applies that model on a bit-level image encryption scheme. The algorithm consists of three main operations: the generation of secret keys, confusion and diffusion operations that can break the limitation of row and column. To confirm the novel algorithm's effectiveness and safety against the common types of attacks, many experiments are done and security analyses are discussed. It demonstrates the good chaos of the proposed model from the aspect of encryption performance.