Dynamic Address Allocation Algorithm for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

A Mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) consists of nodes which use multi-hop communication to establish connection between nodes. Traditional infrastructure based systems use a centralized architecture for address allocation. However, this is not possible in Ad hoc networks due to their dynamic structure. Many schemes have been proposed to solve this problem, but most of them use network-wide broadcasts to ensure the availability of a new address. This becomes extremely difficult as network size grows. In this paper, we propose an address allocation algorithm which avoids network-wide broadcasts to allocate address to a new node. Moreover, the algorithm allocates addresses dynamically such that the network maintains an ‘IP resembles topology’ state. In such a state, routing becomes easier and the overall overhead in communication is reduced. This algorithm is particularly useful for routing protocols which use topology information to route messages in the network. Our solution is designed with scalability in mind such that the cost of address assignment to a new node is independent of the number of nodes in the network.