Simulink is extensively used across various industries to model and simulate cyber-physical systems. Most industry-built models contain sensitive intellectual property, which prevents companies from sharing models with interested third parties, such as researchers. Initiatives to replace industry-built models with open-source alternatives exist, however they offer only limited remedy. In this work, we offer a novel approach: a Simulink obfuscation tool named SMOKE, designed to selectively protect intellectual property in models. This allows companies to share relevant parts of their models with researchers or other third parties, while safeguarding all sensitive information. We evaluated the tool on an extensive set of open-source models and found it successfully removes sensitive components, while preserving model structure. A video demonstration of SMOKE is available online at https://youtu.be/TFeFNKHSlAw.
Alexander Boll University of Bern, Timo Kehrer University of Bern, Michael Goedicke paluno – The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen