Ad-hoc network for routing extension to support internet protocol version 6(IPV6) and method thereof
An ad-hoc network for routing extension by supporting the IPv6 protocol and a method for routing extension. The ad-hoc network comprises a gateway for appending an address configuration message to an ad-hoc Routing REPly (RREP) message and transmitting an extended ad-hoc RREP message; and a node for separating the address configuration message from the received extended ad-hoc RREP message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREP message, and configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message. Accordingly, the present invention provides efficiency and improves the network scalability by utilizing the existing IPv6 protocol without amendments and reducing the size of the packet transmitted.
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This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 (a) from Korean Patent Application No. 2004-113490 filed on Dec. 28, 2004 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an ad-hoc network and a method for routing extension. More particularly, the present invention relates to an ad-hoc network for routing data to Internet via a gateway and a method for routing extension.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, a mobile communication system delivers data between a mobile element and a base station. The mobile element directly transmits to and receives from the base station data without passing through any other mobile elements or nodes. Meanwhile, when data originated from a certain node are transmitted to a gateway over an ad-hoc network, other nodes are used. A construction of an ad-hoc network is described with reference to
The gateway is responsible for delivering data from the nodes in the ad-hoc network to another communication system (Internet network). The plurality of the nodes transmits packets to the gateway. A node which can directly communicate with the gateway transmits data directly to the gateway. A node which can access the gateway via more than one intermediate node transmits its collected data to a neighboring node which is located on the path between the node and the gateway. One of the main reasons to use a neighboring node is to minimize the power consumption required for data transmission. The power consumed in transmitting data is proportional to the distance between a gateway a the node. Accordingly, the nodes beyond a certain distance from the gateway transmit their collected data via a plurality of other nodes to minimize the power consumption for data transmission.
The following is an explanation of how a node establishes a data transmission path (hereinafter, also referred to as routing) to a gateway in an ad-hoc network. The data routing consists of four stages:
-
- Gateway solicitation process;
- Gateway advertisement process;
- Generating global address for Internet; and
- Sending data
Hereafter, the routing stages for data transmission are illustrated in order with reference to
After the gateway solicitation process, the ad-hoc network performs the gateway advertisement process (S202). In the gateway advertisement process, the gateway, receiving the message originated from the node, transmits its address information to the node. The gateway extracts the address information of the node from the message received during the gateway solicitation process. The gateway transmits a message containing its address information to a node corresponding to the extracted address information. Unlike in the gateway solicitation process, the messages are unicasted in the gateway advertisement process. That is, a message transmitted from the gateway is unicasted to a node using the path information obtained during the gateway solicitation process. Nodes forwarding the message store information about the path to the gateway. Nodes receiving the message originated from the gateway count the number of hops. Specifically, nodes receiving the message add one to the number of hops contained in the message received from the previous node and forwards the message containing the number of the increased hops to a next node. Therefore, the node requesting the path information of the gateway can acquire the path information of the gateway and the number of hops to the gateway. It is noted that, as for a plurality of gateways, the node acquires information relating to each of the gateways.
In configuring a global address for Internet, the node configures its unique address using the acquired information (S204). When the gateway for data transmission is selected, the node sends, data along the established path (S206).
In the gateway advertisement process, a gateway may frequently broadcast to all nodes in the ad-hoc network. In that case, a node receiving the advertisement message can directly configure its unique address and establish a route to the gateway. A node which intends to send a packet to Internet may directly access to the gateway.
With the advent of ad-hoc networks, home networks, sensor networks, and the like, and the network extension therefrom through connection to Internet, the protocols for addressing and data routing for the networks also have been extended. In this regard, an extended routing method is demanded.
In a conventional ad-hoc network for transmitting data to Internet, routing extension can be carried out by two methods.
The present invention has been provided to address the above-mentioned and other problems and disadvantages occurring in the conventional arrangement of an ad-hoc network, and an aspect of the present invention provides an ad-hoc network for routing extension by supporting the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol without modification to the existing IPv6 protocol, and a method for the routing extension.
Another aspect of the present invention provides an ad-hoc network for routing extension by supporting the IPv6 protocol such that a complete address is configured and an accurate routing path is established using the IPv6 protocol, and a method for the routing extension.
To achieve the above aspects and/or features of the present invention, an ad-hoc network comprises a gateway for appending an address configuration message to an ad-hoc Routing REPly (RREP) message and transmitting an extended ad-hoc RREP message; and a node for separating the address configuration message from the received extended ad-hoc RREP message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREP message, and configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message.
Each of the nodes and the gateway may include an extension translator that extends an ad-hoc Routing message by appending an address configuration request message or an address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREQ or RREP message, and an ICMPv6 translator that separates the received extended ad-hoc Routing messages into the address configuration message and the ad-hoc Routing message.
The gateway may further respond with an extended ad-hoc RREP message to a node which requests address configuration by sending an address configuration request message.
The node may append an address configuration request message initiated by an address configuration stack to an ad-hoc Routing REQuest (RREQ) message and transmit an extended ad-hoc RREQ message.
The ad-hoc network may be constructed with a plurality of nodes, and the gateway is one of the plurality of the nodes.
The address configuration message may contain prefix information.
The node may further comprise an address configuration stack for configuring a global address using the prefix contained in the translated address configuration message.
The address configuration message and the address configuration request message may be the type of Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6).
The extended ad-hoc RREP message may be compressible by omitting duplicated or pre-determined fields of the messages.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a routing extension method in an ad-hoc network that includes a gateway for transmitting an ad-hoc Routing REPly (RREP) message and a plurality of nodes for receiving the ad-hoc RREP message, comprises appending an address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREP message and transmitting an extended ad-hoc RREP message; and separating the address configuration message from the received extended ad-hoc RREP message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREP message, and configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message.
The routing extension method may further comprise extending an ad-hoc Routing REQuest (RREQ) message by appending the address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREQ message; sending the extended ad-hoc RREQ message to the gateway; and separating the address configuration request message from the received extended ad-hoc RREQ message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREQ message, and replying with extended ad-hoc RREP message to the node.
The gateway may be one of the plurality of the nodes.
The address configuration message may contain prefix information.
The routing extension method may further comprise translating the received extended ad-hoc RREP message into the address configuration message; and configuring the global address using the prefix contained in the translated address configuration message.
The address configuration message and the address configuration request message may be the type of Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6).
The extended ad-hoc RREP message may be compressible.
The above and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of exemplary embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
Certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In the following description, same drawing reference numerals are used for the same elements even in different drawings. The matters defined in the description, such as detailed construction and element descriptions, are provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of the invention. Also, well-known functions or constructions are not described in detail since they would obscure the invention in unnecessary detail.
Referring to
An ad-hoc network, which is a temporary network constructed independently from foreign networks, requires a gateway to connect to external Internet. The gateway is responsible for delivering data from nodes in the ad-hoc network to Internet. The gateway is one of the nodes in the ad-hoc network. In other words, one of the nodes in the ad-hoc network serves as a gateway to transmit data from the other nodes to Internet. At this time, the nodes need to configure their global addresses for interfacing with external Internet.
In particular, the gateway appends an Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) message, especially, a Routing Advertisement (RA) message according to the IPv6 protocol, to the ad-hoc routing message, especially, a Routing REPly (RREP) message according to the ad-hoc routing protocol, using an extension translator. The ad-hoc routing protocol pertains to routing. The IPv6 protocol is a version of the 32-bit IPv4 protocol extended by four times, and greatly increases the number of addresses by lengthening IP address space to 128 bits. The IPv6 also concerns the address configuration with improved security and network scalability. When the IPv6 address configuration is introduced to an ad-hoc network, the ICMPv6 protocol message is appended to the ad-hoc routing message using the existing ad-hoc routing protocol and the IPv6 protocol so that information for the global address configuration can be added to the ad-hoc routing message. Therefore, both the routing and the global address configuration can be accomplished.
An ad-hoc RREP message is extended by appending an RA message to the RREP message. The gateway sends the extended ad-hoc RREP message to a node that requests routing. In this situation, the gateway extracts address information of the node from the extended ad-hoc Routing REQuest (RREQ) message that has been received during the routing solicitation process. The gateway sends the extended ad-hoc RREP message containing its address information to a node that corresponds to the extracted address information. Unlike in the routing solicitation process, messages are unicasted in the routing advertisement process. More specifically, the extended ad-hoc RREP message originated from the gateway can be unicasted to the node through multi-hop routing based on the address information acquired in the routing solicitation process.
The node receives the extended ad-hoc RREP message from the gateway. The node obtains routing information from the extended ad-hoc RREP message by analyzing the RREP message according to the ad-hoc routing protocol and thus learns the established path to the gateway. Next, the node extracts the RA message from the extended ad-hoc RREP message using an ICMPv6 message translator and passes the message to an IPv6 stack. The IPv6 stack obtains the address information by analyzing the extracted RA message. Next, the IPv6 stack generates its global address based on the address information according to the IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism.
An embodiment has been explained with reference to
Referring to
As shown in
An embodiment has been explained with reference to
A gateway may frequently advertise an RA message to all nodes in the ad-hoc network. In that case, the gateway appends the periodically generated RA message to the ad-hoc RREP message and broadcast to all neighboring nodes. A node receiving this message extracts the RA message, constructs a route to the gateway, and rebroadcasts to a neighboring node. The node receiving the advertisement message can directly configure its unique address and establish a route to the gateway. A node which intends to send a packet to Internet may directly access to the gateway.
Each node in the ad-hoc network is provided with the extension translator to transmit the extended ad-hoc RREQ message to the gateway. In addition, each node in the ad-hoc network is provided with the ICMPv6 translator to extract the IPv6 message from the extended ad-hoc RREP message received from the gateway. The gateway, which is one of the nodes in the ad-hoc network, also is equipped with the extension translator and the ICMPv6 translator.
As shown in
TYPE in ICMPv6 RA indicates whether a compression mode is applied or not. For example, TYPE 0000 0110, that is, “TYPE=6” denotes a no-compression mode. TYPE 1000 0110, that is, “TYPE=134” denotes a compression mode. A node receiving an IPv6 message can recognize whether the message is in the compression mode or not by looking up the most significant bit of TYPE code that contains the value of “0” or “1”. REACHABLE TIME code and RETRANSMIT TIME code are always set to “0.” M/O bits are always in “off” state.
As for prefix information option, TYPE is fixed to “3,” and LENGTH is fixed to “4.” L, A, and R are always in “on” state. Prefix information option contains PREFIX that is the address information required for generating global address configuration.
When a node requests address information from the gateway, the IPv6 stack in the node initiates an RS message. The RS message is appended by the extension translator to extend the ad-hoc routing message. The ad-hoc routing message contains the ad-hoc RREQ message. The originator's address contained in the ad-hoc RREQ message is the address of the node that requests address information of the gateway. The originator's address in the RREQ message is retained while the source address contained in the IPv6 header is changed as intermediate nodes retransmit the extended ad-hoc routing message. The message is transmitted in a broadcast manner. When an RS message is received by a gateway and extracted by the ICMPv6 translator, the ICMPv6 translator replaces the source address contained in the IPv6 header of the RS message by the originator's address included in the RREQ message. Thus, the IPv6 stack in the gateway can learn which node requests routing and attempts to send the RA message to the node of the originator's address.
Referring to
At this time, the extended ad-hoc RREP message, which is in the no-compression mode, has the value of “6” as the most significant bit of TYPE in the IPv6 RA is “0”.
At this time, the extended ad-hoc RREQ message, which is in the no-compression mode, has the value of “5” as the most significant bit of TYPE in the IPv6 RS is “0” and the extended ad-hoc RREP message, which is in the no-compression mode, has the value of “6” as the most significant bit of TYPE in the IPv6 RA is “0”.
Referring to
As set forth above, the present invention provides efficiency of the ad-hoc network and improves the network scalability by utilizing the existing IPv6 protocol without amendments and reducing the size of the packet transmitted.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
Claims
1. An ad-hoc network comprising:
- a gateway configured to append an address configuration message to an ad-hoc Routing REPly (RREP) message and transmit an extended ad-hoc RREP message; and
- a node configured to separate the address configuration message from the received extended ad-hoc RREP message, establish a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREP message, and configure a global address using the separated address configuration message.
2. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein each of the nodes and the gateway comprises:
- an extension translator that extends an ad-hoc Routing message by appending an address configuration request message or an address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREQ or RREP message, and
- an ICMPv6 translator that separates the received extended ad-hoc Routing messages into the address configuration message and the ad-hoc Routing message.
3. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the gateway further responds with an extended ad-hoc RREP message to a node which requests address configuration by sending an address configuration request message.
4. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the node appends an address configuration request message initiated by an address configuration stack to an ad-hoc Routing REQuest(RREQ) message and transmits an extended ad-hoc RREQ message.
5. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the ad-hoc network is constructed with a plurality of nodes, and the gateway is one of the plurality of the nodes.
6. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the address configuration message may contain prefix information.
7. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the node may further comprise:
- an address configuration stack for configuring a global address using the prefix contained in the translated address configuration message.
8. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the address configuration message and the address configuration request message are the type of Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6).
9. The ad-hoc network of claim 1, wherein the extended ad-hoc Routing messages are compressible by omitting duplicated or pre-determined fields of the messages.
10. A routing extension method in an ad-hoc network that comprises a gateway for transmitting an ad-hoc Routing REPly (RREP) message and a plurality of nodes for receiving the ad-hoc RREP message, wherein the method comprises: appending an address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREP message and transmitting an extended ad-hoc RREP message; and
- separating the address configuration message from the received extended ad-hoc RREP message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREP message, and configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message.
11. The routing extension method of claim 10, further comprising:
- extending an ad-hoc Routing REQuest (RREQ) message by appending the address configuration message to the ad-hoc RREQ message;
- sending the extended ad-hoc RREQ message to the gateway; and
- separating the address configuration request message from the received extended ad-hoc RREQ message, establishing a packet transmission path using the ad-hoc RREQ message, and replying with extended ad-hoc RREP message to the node.
12. The routing extension method of claim 10, wherein the gateway is one of the plurality of the nodes.
13. The routing extension method of claim 10, wherein the address configuration message contains prefix information.
14. The routing extension method of claim 10, further comprising:
- translating the received extended ad-hoc RREP message into the address configuration message; and
- configuring the global address using the prefix contained in the translated address configuration message.
15. The routing extension method of claim 10, wherein the address configuration message and the address configuration request message are the type of Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6).
16. The routing extension method of claim 10, wherein the extended ad-hoc RREP message is compressible.
17. A routing method in a gateway of an ad-hoc network, comprising:
- receiving a routing request message;
- generating an extended routing reply message by adding a routing advertisement message by an IPv6 protocol to a routing reply message;
- extracting an address information of a node which transmits the routing request message from the routing request message; and
- transmitting the extended routing reply message to the node using the extracted address information.
18. A routing method in a node of an ad-hoc network, comprising:
- receiving an extended routing reply message transmitted by a gateway;
- extracting a routing advertisement message from the extended routing reply message;
- obtaining an address information by analyzing the extracted routing advertisement message; and
- generating a global address of the node using the address information.
19. A routing extension method of a node in an ad-hoc network, the method comprising:
- receiving a routing request message from a counterpart node;
- generating a Routing REPly (RREP) message;
- generating an address configuration message required for global address configuration according to an Internet Protocol Version(IPv6) protocol;
- appending the address configuration message to the RREP message to generate an extended RREP message; and
- transmitting the extended RREP message to the counterpart node.
20. The routing extension method of claim 19, wherein the address configuration message is an Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) message according to the IPv6 protocol.
21. The routing extension method of claim 20, wherein the ICMPv 6 message comprises a prefix information option on which prefix information is recorded.
22. The routing extension method of claim 20, wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises Type, Length, ROUTER LIFETIME, VALID LIFETIME, and PREFERRED LIFETIME.
23. The routing extension method of claim 19, further comprising:
- extracting address information of the counterpart node from the routing request message,
- wherein the node transmits the extended RREP message to the counterpart node using the extracted address information.
24. The routing extension method of claim 19, wherein the node is a gateway.
25. The routing extension method of claim 19, wherein the routing request message is an ad-hoc routing request message to which an IPv6 message is appended, and
- the node extracts the IPv6 message appended to the ad-hoc routing request message, and determines whether or not prefix information is requested.
26. A routing extension method of a node in an ad-hoc network, the method comprising:
- transmitting a routing request message to a gateway;
- receiving from the gateway an extended Routing REPly (RREP) message generated by appending an address configuration message generated according to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol to an RREP message;
- separating the address configuration message from the extended RREP message;
- configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message; and connecting to Internet using the global address.
27. The routing extension method of claim 26, wherein the routing request message is an ad-hoc routing request message to which an IPv6 message is appended.
28. The routing extension method of claim 26, wherein the address configuration message is an Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) message according to the IPv6 protocol.
29. The routing extension method of claim 28, wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises a prefix information option on which prefix information is recorded.
30. The routing extension method of claim 28, wherein the ICMPv 6 message comprises an IPv6 header comprising a source address and a destination address, and an IPv6 Routing Advertisement (RA) comprising type information indicating whether a compression mode is applied or not.
31. The routing extension method of claim 28, wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises Type, Length, ROUTER LIFETIME, VALID LIFETIME, and PREFERRED LIFETIME.
32. An ad-hoc network system comprising:
- a first node to transmit a routing request message; and
- a second node to receive the routing request message from the first node, generate a Routing REPly (RREP) message, and transmit to the first node an extended RREP message generated by appending an address configuration message required for global address configuration according to an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol to the generated RREP message.
33. The ad-hoc network system of claim 32, wherein the first node receives the extended RREP message, separates the address configuration message from the extended RREP message, and configures a global address using the separated address configuration message.
34. The ad-hoc network system of claim 32, wherein the address configuration message is an Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the first node configures the global address using an IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism.
35. The ad-hoc network system of claim 32, wherein the address configuration message is an ICMPv6 message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises a prefix information option on which prefix information, is recorded.
36. The ad-hoc network system of claim 32, wherein the address configuration message is an ICMPv6 message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises Type, Length, ROUTER LIFETIME, VALID LIFETIME, and PREFERRED LIFETIME.
37. A routing extension method of an ad-hoc network system, the method comprising:
- at a first node in the ad-hoc network system, transmitting a routing request message;
- at a second node in the ad-hoc network system, receiving the routing request message;
- at the second node, generating a Routing REPly (RREP) message, generating an address configuration message required for global address configuration according to an Internet Protocol Version(IPv6) protocol, and generating an extended RREP message by appending the address configuration message to the generated RREP message;
- at the second node, transmitting to the first node the extended RREP;
- at the first node, receiving the extended RREP message and separating the address configuration message from the extended RREP message; and
- at the first node, configuring a global address using the separated address configuration message.
38. The routing extension method of claim 37, wherein the address configuration message is an Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the first node configures the global address using an IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration mechanism.
39. The routing extension method of claim 37, wherein the address configuration message is an ICMPv6 message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises a prefix information option on which prefix information is recorded.
40. The routing extension method of claim 37, wherein the address configuration message is an ICMPv6 message according to the IPv6 protocol, and
- wherein the ICMPv6 message comprises Type, Length, ROUTER LIFETIME, VALID LIFETIME, and PREFERRED LIFETIME.
20010024443 | September 27, 2001 | Alriksson et al. |
20050117560 | June 2, 2005 | Thubert et al. |
20050195814 | September 8, 2005 | Hagiwara et al. |
10-2002-0082471 | October 2002 | KR |
10-2004-0046688 | June 2004 | KR |
Type: Grant
Filed: Aug 28, 2009
Date of Patent: Sep 20, 2011
Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Suwon-si)
Inventors: Yong-sung Roh (Icheon-si), Jae-hoon Kim (Yongin-si), Kyung-lim Kang (Suwon-si), Young-gon Choi (Suwon-si), Jung-ho Kim (Suwon-si), Shubhranshu Singh (Karnatake)
Primary Examiner: Keith T Ferguson
Attorney: Sughrue Mion, PLLC
Application Number: 12/549,696
International Classification: H04Q 7/20 (20060101);