Communication Over an Acoustic Channel Using Data Hiding Techniques

Abstract—This work proposes an audio data hiding system that hides information into signals not known beforehand. The system can hide data into live music, or ambient sounds in general, and can be used to communicate information acoustically from one device to another. An important benefit of such a system is backward-compatibility, as the transmitter is a speaker, and the receiver is a microphone, both of which are already present in numerous devices and environments. The highest data rate achieved was 213 bits/s, while keeping the error rate under 10%. The developed technique was applied in a simple navigation system, where acoustic data embedded into background music indicates the location of the receiver. Index Terms—Acoustic communication, data hiding. I