Data Encryption Using ECG Signals

with Chaotic Henon Map

Ching-Kun Chen

Chun-Liang Lin

Yen-Ming Chiu

Department of Electrical Engineering,

National Chung Hsing University,
Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
d9564205@mail.nchu.edu.tw

Department of Electrical Engineering,

National Chung Hsing University,
Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
chunlin@dragon.nchu.edu.tw

Department of Electrical Engineering,

National Chung Hsing University,
Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
g9764204@mail.nchu.edu.tw

Abstract-Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals varying from person

to person, it could possibly be applied as a tool for biometric
recognition. This paper attempts to introduce an individual
feature of ECG with a chaotic Henon map for cryptography. The
encryption system utilizes a portable instrument (Heart Pal) to
collect ECG signals from the encrypted person and applies an
intelligent algorithm based on Chaos theory to generate initial
keys for chaotic Henon map. High quality randomness of ECG
signals results in a widely expanded key space which would be an
ideal key generator for data encryption.
Keywords- Image encryption, Henon map, ECG signals

I.

INTRODUCTION

Image is a sort of the communication information. Along

with multimedia and network technologies developed, the
digital information has been applied to many areas in realworld applications [1]. However, because it is easy to copy,
information security problem has been becoming crucial during
the process of communication. To protect the content of digital
images during communication, introduction of the specific
encryption systems is usually a must [2]. Cryptography is one
of basic methodologies for information security. Since 1990s,
many researchers have noticed that there exists a close
relationship between chaos and cryptography [3, 4]. Recently,
chaos theory gradually plays an active role in cryptography
consistently [5, 6]. Chaotic systems have several significant
features such as sensitivity to initial conditions, nonperiodicity, randomness, etc which make these kinds of
systems ideal for secure communication.
Biometrics can be used to prevent unauthorized access to
ATMs, cellular phones, PCs, workstations, and computer
networks. Recently, biometric based systems of personal
identification are receiving considerable interest of
research. Various types of biometric systems are being used
for real-time identification; the most popular are based on face,
iris and fingerprint matching. There are also biometric systems
that utilize retinal scan, speech, signatures and hand geometry.
Human heart is an uttermost complex biological system.
There exists no model that can take into consideration all of
cardiac electrical activity. In the field of chaotic dynamical
system theory, several features can be used to describe system
dynamics including correlation dimension (D2), Lyapunov

exponents ( k ), approximate entropy, etc. These features have

been used to explain ECGs behavior for diagnostic purposes
[7-9].
ECG signals change significantly from person to person,
compared with the previously mentioned systems, the
biometric feature of ECG signals is extremely difficult to
duplicate. Therefore, that kind of signals is appropriate as a sort
of biometric tools for individual identification. Here, Lyapunov
exponents spectrum is used for extracting features of human
ECG and further attempted to be a key to encrypt images for
secure transmission. Design of the chaotic cryptosystem is
proposed by using the private feature of ECG signals and two
dimensional Henon map for image encryption. Primitive
success of the approach allows it to be applicable to secure
communication.
II.

DESCRIPTION OF METHODS

A. Phase space reconstruction

Phase space or diagram is a space where every point
describes two or more states of a system variable. The number
of states that can be displayed in phase space is called phase
space dimension or reconstruction dimension. Phase space in

d dimensions display a number of points Z (n) of the system,

{ }

where each point is given by

Z ( n ) = [ z ( n ), z (n + nT )," , z (n + (d 1)nT ) ]
where
n =T

(1)

n is the moment in time of a system variable,

with denoting the sampling period and T being

the period between two consecutive measurement for

constructing the phase plot. The trajectory in d dimensional
space is a set of k consecutive points and
n = n0 , n0 + nT ," , n0 + (k 1)nT where n0 is the starting time
(in terms of the number of sampling period) of observation.
T

Phase space reconstruction is a standard procedure while

analyzing chaotic systems. It shows the trajectory of the system
in time. Fig. 1 shows an example of the attractor obtained from
the ECG extractor program to be presented in Section . Its a

978-1-4244-5943-8/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Fig. 2. Flow chart of the image encryption scheme

phase space reconstruction of encryption person collected from

a portable instrument.
2.2

4.

2
1.8

Z(n+T)

1.4

1
t s t0

d1 (tk )

0 (tk 1 )

ln d
k =1

(2)

where tk = k .

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

Z(n)

Fig. 1. Attractors of an ECG signal from encryption person

B. Lyapunov Exponent
Lyapunov exponents quantify the sensitivity of the system
to initial conditions, which is an important feature of chaotic
systems. Sensitivity to initial conditions means that small
changes in the state of a system will grow at an exponential
rate and eventually dominate the behavior. Lyapunov
exponents are defined as the long time average exponential
rates of divergence of nearby states. If a system has at least one
positive Lyapunov exponent, than the system is chaotic. The
larger the positive exponent, the more chaotic the system
becomes. Lyapunov exponents are, in general, arranged such
that 1 2 " n , where 1 and n correspond to the
most rapidly expanding and contracting principal axes,
respectively. Therefore, 1 may be regarded as an estimator of
the dominant chaotic behavior of a system. Here, the largest
Lyapunov exponent 1 is treated as a measure of the ECG
signal using the wolf algorithm [10]. The process of
determination 1 is listed as follows:

2.

If d1 becomes too large, keep one of the points and

choose an appropriate replacement for other point.
Repeat Steps 1-3 after s propagations, the largest
Lyapunov exponent 1 should be calculated via

1 =

1.6

1.

3.

Compute the separation d 0 of nearby two points in the

reconstructed phase space orbit.
Come next both points as they move a short distance
along the orbit. Calculate the new separation d1 .

C. Henon Map
The Henon map is a 2-D iterated map with chaotic solutions
proposed by M. Henon (1976) as a simplified model of the
Poincare map for the Lorenz model [11]. The Henon map
equation is given the following equation :
2
X n +1 = 1 aX n + bYn
(3)

Yn +1 = X n
where a and b are (positive) bifurcation parameters, and n=
0,1,2,... The parameter b is a measure of the rate of area
contraction, and the Henon map is the most general 2-D
quadratic map with the property that the contraction is
independent of x and y. Bounded solutions exist for the Henon
map over a range of a and b, some yield chaotic solutions.
III. SYSTEM DESIGN AND ENCRYPTION
This section introduces the procedure of the proposed
image encryption system using ECG signals with chaotic
Henon map. Fig. 2 illustrates the flow chart of the image
encryption scheme. The physiological signals of encryption
person are collected and stored form a portable instrument and
a digital signal processing unit under the environment of
LabView. Chaos methods presented in Section is employed
in the image encryption algorithm using the Henon map and
ECG extraction program and wolf algorithm. ECG extraction
program extracts feature from ECG files as an initial keys ( 1 )
for the Henon map, the chaotic function is then used to
generate an unpredictable random orbit. It can be used as a
privacy encryption key serial to replace pixel values and

coordinates of the image. In turn, the chaotic decryption

algorithm is served as an inverse operation.
Initial key from 1
Xo , Yo

Henon Map

Plain Image

Produce privacy key

X,Y

Take out pixel value

matrix I(i,j)

S (M N )

Replace pixel value

I (i, j )

Pixel index and

rows replacement
I (i , j )

i=M?

i+1

IV.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The ECG signals adopted in this paper were obtained from

three healthy male adults. Table II shows the information of
age, height and weight. Figs. 4-6 show the ECG signals with
the sampling period = 0.1 ms and the corresponding phase
plots from three persons, respectively, where T=10 (equivalent
to 1 ms). ECG extraction program extracts feature from three
different persons using wolf algorithm is shown in Table III.
For a good encryption system, the key serial should be able to
against the brute-force attack. It should be sensitive to the
private key. A variety of simulations have been conducted to
evaluate the performance of the proposed encryption system.
Table IV lists three representative images provided in the
MATLAB image processing toolbox. Table V reveals that
when the initial values changed to 1 of the person 2, the
decryption scheme would generate a completely different
decrypted result. Figs. 7-9 display simulations results and
histograms for three kinds of images. The image histogram
illustrates how pixels in an image are distributed by graphing
the number of pixels at the intensity level of color. The results
of histogram analysis show extremely different content in the
original and encrypted images. It appears that the proposed
encryption system is quite sensitive to the private key and thus
is appropriate for secure communication.
Person 1

j=N?

Voltage(v)

I (i , j )

j+1

Person 1

2.4

2.4

2.2

2.2

1.8

1.8

1.6

1.6

Z(n+T)

Pixel index and

rows replacement

1.4
1.2

1.4
1.2

0.8

0.8

0.6
0.4

0.6

0.4
0.4

10

0.6

0.8

1.2

time(sec)

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

2.4

Z(n)

(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. Person 1 (a) ECG signal (b) phase plot

Cipher Image
S ( M N )

Person 2

Person 2

1.5

1.5

Z(n+T)
0.5

0.5
0.5

10

1.5

time(sec)

Z(n)

(a)
(b)
Fig. 5. Person 2 (a) ECG signal (b) phase plot
Person 3

Person 3

2.2

2.2

1.8

1.8

1.6

1.6

1.4

1.4

Z(n+T)

TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF HENON MAP FOR ENCRYPTION AND DECRYPTION
Items
Value
Description
n
1500
number of iterations
initial value formed by 1 of the person 1
X0 and Y0
0.0239
a
1.4
system parameter
b
0.3
system parameter

Voltage(v)

Fig. 3 shows flow chart of the chaotic encryption algorithm.

Suppose that the encrypted grayscale image is S, whose size is
MN and the pixel value of coordinates (i, j ) is I (i, j ) , and
1 i M , 1 j N . The new coordinates of (i, j ) after the
operation of replaced is (i , j ) and I (i, j ) is the replaced pixel
value of coordinates (i, j ) . To increase the undetectability, the
new coordinates and pixel value I (i , j ) can be produced by
using the chaotic Henon Map (3). Table I lists key parameters
of Henon Map for the encryption and decryption algorithms.

Voltage(v)

Fig. 3. Flow chart of the chaotic encryption algorithm

1.2
1

1.2
1

0.8

0.8

0.6

0.6

0.4
0.2

0.4

time(sec)

10

0.2
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Z(n)

(a)
(b)
Fig. 6. Person 3 (a) ECG signal (b) phase plot

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.2

TABLE II
AGE, HEIGHT AND WEIGHT OF THREE MALE ADULTS JOINING THE
EXPERIMENT
Person 1
Person 2
Person 3
Age (Yr)
24
24
22
Height (cm)
176
165
165
Weight (kg)
75
61
60
TABLE III
COMPUTED 1 OF ECG SIGNALS FOR DIFFERENT PERSONS
Person 1
0.0239

Person 2
0.0243

Person 3
0.0241
(a)

Filename
cameraman.tif
kids.tif
peppers.png

Items
n
X0 and Y0
a
b

TABLE IV
DIFFERENT KINDS OF IMAGES
Size
Color type
256 256
8 bits grayscale
318 400
8 bits indexed
512 384
24 bits RGB

(c)
3500

3500
3000
3000
2500

2500

2000

2000

TABLE V
PARAMETERS OF HENON MAP FOR DECRYPTION
Value
Description
1500
number of iterations
initial value formed by 1 of the person 2
0.0243
1.4
system parameter
0.3
system parameter

1500

1500

1000

1000

500

500

0
0

50

100

150

200

250

50

(b)

100

150

200

250

(d)

(e)
(f)
Fig. 8. Encryption and decryption for Case 2 (a) original image; (b)
histograms of the original image; (c) encrypted image; (d) histograms of the
encrypted image; (e) incorrect decrypted image; (f) correct decrypted image.
(a)

(c)

( )

( )

1600
1200
1400
1200

1000

1000

800

800
600
600
400
400
200

200
0

0
0

50

100

((b))

150

200

250

50

100

150

200

250

(a)

(d)
()

(e)
5000
4500

3000

4000
2500

3500
3000

2000

2500
1500

2000
1500

1000

1000
500

500
0

0
0

50

100

150

(b)
(e)
(f)
Fig. 7. Encryption and decryption for Case 1 (a) original image. (b)
histograms of original image; (c) encrypted image; (d) histograms of
encrypted image; (e) incorrect decrypted image; (f) correct decrypted image.

200

50

100

150

250

(f)

200

250

3500

V.

3500

3000

3000
2500

2500
2000

2000
1500

1500
1000

1000

500

500

0
0

50

100

150

200

250

50

100

(c)

150

200

250

CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents an image encryption scheme based on

the individual-specific features of ECG as initial keys for the
Henon map. Very high quality randomness results in a widely
expanded key space which would be an ideal key generator to
for the encryption algorithm. The proposed method is shown to
be useful for real-time image encryption and transmission
applications.

(g)

( )

( )

REFERENCES

3500

3500
3000

[1]

3000
2500

2500
2000

2000
1500

1500

1000

1000

500

500
0

0
0

50

100

150

(d)

( )

200

250

50

100

150

200

250

(h)

(i)
(j)
Fig. 9. Encryption and decryption for Case 3 (a) original image; (b)(c)(d) the
histograms of red, green and blue channels of the original image respectively;
(e) encrypted image; (f)(g)(h) histograms of red, green and blue colors of the
encrypted image respectively; (i) incorrect decrypted image; (j) correct
decrypted image.

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