IP address handoff in the MANET

When compared with a fixed host that is connected to a hardwired network, a mobile nude in the MANET may change its IP address more frequently due to the deployment of autoconfiguration, global connectivity, and hierarchical addressing schemes. When an IP address changes, the performance of unicast routing protocols and real-time communications may degrade, and privacy may be compromised within the MANET. Although there have been some autoconfiguration algorithms proposed for the assignment of unique IP addresses to mobile nodes, the overhead resulting from address changes has not been carefully examined. Based on studies of the overhead caused by address change, an IP address handoff solution, which extends the unicast routing protocol and network address translation (NAT) scheme, is proposed in the paper. The proposed approach is able to offset the overhead of broken routing fabrics and on-going communications, which is supported by our analysis and a prototype implementation.