A Duplicate Address Resolution Protocol in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

In an IP-based network, automated dynamic assignment of IP addresses is desirable. In most of wired networks, a node acquiring an IP address relies on centralized server by using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) [5]. But this DHCP-based approach cannot be employed in a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) due to the uncertainty of any centralized DHCP server. That is, a MANET may become partitioned due to host mobility. Therefore, there is no guarantee to access a DHCP server. A general approach is to allow a mobile host to pick a tentative address randomly, and then use a duplicate address resolution (DAR) protocol to resolve duplicate addresses. In this paper, we propose a novel distributed dynamic host configuration protocol designed to configure nodes in MANET. Our protocol not only can detect the duplicate address, but also can resolve the duplicate address. We show that the proposed protocol works correctly and is more general than earlier approaches. We also propose an enhanced version of DAR scheme, which solves the situations of duplicate MAC address in the same time or some devices without MAC addresses. A new approach we propose in this paper can make the nodes in MANET provide services to other networks and avoid packets be delivered to an incorrect destination.