Design and Analysis of a One-Step Addressing Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks HAMED NASSAR Suez Canal University CS Department Ismailia, 41522 EGYPT HASSAN AL-MAHDI Suez Canal University CS Department Ismailia, 41522 EGYPT MAGDI EL-GABALI Suez Canal University CS Department Ismailia, 41522 EGYPT SAFA ABDUL AZIZ Suez Canal University CS Department Ismailia, 41522 EGYPT Abstract: A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) consists of a set of identical mobile nodes communicating with each other via wireless links. A mobile device in a MANET must be auto-configured before it may participate in a communication session. Several auto-configuration protocols for assigning an IP address have been proposed but there is still need for improvement. In this paper, we present a new address auto-configuration protocol called one- step addressing (OSA) protocol. This protocol generates less latency and communication overhead for assigning an IP address than previous protocols. An analytical model to investigate the performance of OSA is presented. We compare this performance with that of the token-based and the logical hierarchical addressing (LHA) protocols. The numerical results show that the OSA protocol exhibits better performance, in particular lower latency and communications overhead. Key–Words: Ad hoc network, IP address allocation, Latency, Communications overhead, Markov chain 1 Introduction A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a group of mobile wireless nodes which cooperatively form an IP-based network [1]. This network is independent of any fixed infrastructure or centralized adminis- tration. A node communicates directly with nodes within its transmission range. Nodes that are part of the MANET, but beyond each other’s transimis- sion range, communicate using a multi-hop route through other nodes in the network. These multi-hop routes are determined using a routing protocol such as DSDV Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector rout- ing), DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) or AODV (Ad- hoc On-demand Distance-Vector routing). Various auto-configuration protocols have been developed for address allocation in a MANET. These protocols have been classified into four categories based on their IP allocation techniques called decentralized, leader- based, neighbor-based and passive schemes [2]. The efficiency of these protocols can be evaluated based on four: metrics, address allocation latency, commu- nication overhead, network partitioning and network merging. Address allocation latency is defined as the time taken from when a node requests an address to when it is assigned an address. Communication over- head is defined as the number of control packets trans- mitted during the address allocation process. In [3], IPAA protocol adopts a try and error pol- icy to find an available IP address for a new node. In IPAA, network partitioning and merging are well han- dled but this protocol still achieves high communica- tion overhead and high latency. In [4], MANETconf protocol that is based on a distributed mutual exclusion algorithm to check the uniqueness of the address is introduced. The new node selects one of its neighbors as an agent, the agent picks a currently unused address from its table and broadcasts a message to obtain an agreement from all nodes in the network. The efficiency of MANETconf is more depending on loss rate rather than the number of nodes in the network. In the token-based scheme [2], the node holding a token is called the allocator. The allocatortakes charge of address allocation to a new node. The address al- location procedure is similar to that of MANETconf except that it doesn’t require global agreement, since a single node has the right to assign addresses. The la- tency of the token-based protocol is mainly depending on loss rate since packet loss increases delay to reach the allocation. Prophet address allocation protocol [5] treats the process of IP address allocation as the assignment of different numbers from an integer range to different nodes using a generation function. When a new node comes, it selects one of its neighbors as its address agent and requests an address from it. 7th WSEAS Int. Conf. on Electronics, Hardware, Wireless and Optical Communications, Cambridge, UK, February 20-22, 2008 ISSN: 1790-5117 Page 140 ISBN: 978-960-6766-40-4