ZAL: Zero-Maintenance Address Allocation in Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

The allocation of IP addresses in hybrid wireless networks is one of the most critical issues in all-IP converged wireless networks. The reason is that centralized IP address allocation mechanisms may not be available in networks comprised of heterogeneous mobile wireless devices. In this paper, the authors proposed zero-maintenance address allocation (ZAL), a fully distributed address allocation algorithm with extremely low communication overhead. ZAL outperforms existing solutions in many important aspects, and eliminates permanent duplication of IP addresses. ZAL is completely free from periodical maintenance messages, timeouts, delays, and modification of existing network protocols. Theoretically, it is proven that ZAL suffers negligible probability of temporary address duplication, while minimizing the usage of address space. In the experiments, addresses to a network of 480 nodes with no duplication of IP addresses when the size of available address space is 1024 (2¹⁰) or larger can be allocated. Even for an available address space of size 512, in average, temporary address duplication can be resolved within 60 seconds after the node joins the network