Spanning-tree based autoconfiguration for mobile ad hoc networks

In order to allow truly spontaneous and infrastructureless networking, autoconfiguration algorithm is needed in the practical usage of most mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). This paper presents spanning-tree based autoconfiguration for mobile ad hoc networks, a novel approach for the efficient distributed address autoconfiguration. With the help of the spanning tree, the proposed scheme attempts to distribute address resources as balanced as possible at the first beginning. Since each node holds a block of free addresses, a newly joining node can obtain a free address almost immediately. Subnet partitioning and merging are well supported. Finally, analysis and simulation demonstrate that our algorithm outperforms the existing approaches in terms of both communication overhead and configuration latency.