Hierarchical IP Distribution Strategy for VANET

Abstract

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is a special type of application in wireless communication, different from the traditional Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET), it has the characteristics of high speed and unlimited power supply in data transmission. Issues on addressing always play critical roles in wired and wireless networks, source nodes can transmit data correctly according to the addresses of the destination nodes. A number of researches on addressing in VANET are proposed, there are mainly two types of addressing mechanisms, which are centralized and distributed mechanisms respectively, these researches on addressing claim high efficient IP configuration, effective duplicate IP detection and the duration of possessing an IP can be continuously extended by vehicles, but the mechanisms of IP recycling and the method to surrender an IP are not discussed clearly, the issues mentioned above are related to the problems of IP reuse. In light of the aforementioned problems, we propose a mechanism for high efficient hierarchical IP distribution system, the basic idea is to endow each AP with the ability to distribute IPs, and these APs are all connected to a server in a hierarchical form for available IP synchronization in order to avoid duplicate IPs and detect unused IPs. Aside from emphasizing the high efficient IP assignment, the additional action for duplicate IP detection is unneeded, and the strategy to recycle IPs surrendered from vehicles for IP reuse and an effective method for recycled IP management are also presented. Furthermore, there is a probability that an AP could malfunction, and the available IPs in this AP will be invalid, the problem is also properly solved in this paper.