Research Projects

Information—whether in the form of messages, text, data, images, audio, or video—has become vital in modern life, therefore, its security is of utmost concern. This necessitates a highly secure platform for information security that can sustain imposed attacks by hackers. Unlike image and text information, the audio security of audio data has become important in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). As the AI amplifies both the convenience and the risks associated with voice technology, securing voice data and interactions is essential to protect privacy, ensure trust, and prevent misuse. Encrypting audio data using digital techniques introduces significant overhead in real-time multimedia applications, as these algorithms typically demand substantial computation time and processing power. Due to the appealing characteristics of light, such as parallel processing capabilities, high speed, and multiple degrees of freedom, light-based technologies have emerged as promising solutions for advancing information security systems. In optics-based security systems, the information is encoded into light using its degree of freedom, like amplitude, phase, polarization, wavelength, spatial frequency, and orbital angular momentum (OAM). Among these, OAM-based image encryption has gained considerable attention. In such schemes, binary images are transformed into arrays of OAM beams and then encrypted using phase multiplexing corresponding to specific topological charges. While this method proves effective for small-scale binary images, extending it to audio encryption remain challenging due to the large size and temporal variability of audio signals. Voice security must balance usability, performance, and protection against a growing number of sophisticated attacks. One of the major challenges of voice recognition systems is that they often struggle in noisy or unpredictable environments. In this situation, an optics-based system would be very effective as it can reduce the effect of background voice. In most of the voice security approaches, audio signals are first converted into two-dimensional matrices referred to as sound maps and then subjected to Arnold transformation followed by DRPE-based encryption. In this project, it is proposed to design and develop a robust and cost-effective optical audio cryptosystem using structured light beam. This approach allows the use of the OAM property of light, which would be utilized to achieve a higher level of security while maintaining the compactness of the optical system for practical applications.