KR100928024B1 - A computer-readable recording medium recording a method of automatically configuring a network address and a program for realizing the method. - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for automatically configuring a network address suitable for intelligent home networking based on power line communication, and to a computer readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer, wherein a node newly registered in a subnet has a parent request packet. And generating a network address based on the information included in the response packet received in response to the parent request packet.

Home network, node, automatic address assignment

Description

METHOD OF NETWORK SELF CONFIGURATION AND COMPUTER READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM THEREFOR}

The present invention relates to a home network, and more particularly, to a method for automatically configuring a network address suitable for intelligent home networking based on power line communication, and to a computer readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer.

In general, automatic configuration technology in an intelligent home network environment refers to a technology for automatically allocating a network address for digital devices such as home appliances. The network address includes a network ID included in an address field of a control packet that digital devices exchange with each other at a network layer, and a subnet ID for distinguishing subnets in a home network composed of a plurality of subnets. Conventional autoconfiguration techniques can be classified in three ways depending on the type of address allocation.

The first method is an address allocation type used in random plug & play technology or IPv6 stateless automatic address allocation mechanism, in which nodes generate their own addresses. This method is simple because the node itself creates an address and then determines the address through redundancy checking, which has the advantage of not requiring a separate server. However, when a new node is added, there is a problem in that network traffic is increased because a broadcast packet must be generated and a response must be collected for address duplication after generating an address.

The second is a hierarchical address allocation method, for example when ZigBee or 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) assigns addresses hierarchically by equations. It forms a logical tree structure and generates address of child node by formula from parent node. The bit-based hierarchical address allocation scheme or the mechanism of generating node addresses sequentially by forming a logical tree when adding a new node in IEEE1394 also belongs to the hierarchical address allocation scheme. This hierarchical address allocation method does not generate an address using a random address or an interface ID by itself, but the address is determined by a single formula so that the address allocation can be maintained consistently. It can be used for the automatic routing function to get the route to the node. However, complex formulas must be managed at each node, and there is a problem that the logical tree structure must be maintained at all times because the automatic routing function cannot be provided when the node is removed. In addition, the hierarchical address allocation method is suitable for an environment that can form a physical tree-like structure such as a sensor network or IEEE1394, but in a bus topology such as power line communication or a broadcast-based network, between a parent node and a child node The relationship is not reflected in the tree formation at all, making wired and wireless devices unsuitable for mixed home networking. For example, when nodes are added one by one in a network topology having a tree structure, it is difficult to form a relationship between a parent and a child between existing nodes and a new node. This is because any node can respond to the broadcast of a parent request packet of a new node, and there is no guarantee that a node that is physically near or in the same branch of the tree responds to the parent request packet.

Finally, the server automatically assigns an address, which assigns one unique address to each node newly added by a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, such as IPv6 stateful address allocation. In this case, not only is the address assigned by the server, but the management of all nodes on the subnet is performed by the server, thereby reducing the burden on each node. However, in this method, if the server fails, the entire network may be paralyzed and the address may be long for a large number of new address assignments.

Accordingly, the present invention has been devised to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to read a computer address autoconfiguration method suitable for intelligent home networking based on power line communication and a program for realizing the method in a computer. To provide a possible recording medium.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of automatically configuring a network address that can omit address duplication while allocating a short address, and a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method of automatically configuring a network address using a simple equation that can reduce the load of nodes and a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of automatically configuring a network address that can flexibly respond to movement, addition, and removal of nodes, and a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer.

In order to achieve the above object, the method of automatically configuring a network address according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the steps of: a new node broadcasting a parent request packet; and a new node receiving a response packet from a parent node existing in a subnet. And generating, by the new node, a network address based on the information included in the response packet.

Preferably, the step of generating a network address by the new node includes the ID (P _ID ) of the parent node, the node depth (d) of the parent node, and the number of times the parent node responds to other nodes (n). It applies to the following equation to generate a node ID (C _ID ).

The method of automatically configuring a network address according to the present invention and a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for realizing the method in a computer have an effect of having an excellent mechanism in the physical environment since it is based on power line communication. Accordingly, the present invention has the effect of having high utilization in home network applications using low speed home network technology.

In addition, the present invention can omit the address duplication while allocating a short address, and at the same time, it is possible to reduce the load of the node and the entire network system by using a simple equation.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the same elements in the figures are represented by the same numerals wherever possible. In addition, detailed descriptions of well-known functions and configurations that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

1 is a diagram illustrating a network structure configured by a method for automatically configuring a network address according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a node 100 having a depth of 0 is a node that is initially registered in a new subnet, and since it is the only node in this subnet, randomly generates a subnet ID to be used in the subnet. At this time, if there are other neighboring subnet (s), the node 100 performs redundancy check, i.e., whether the neighboring subnet (s) are using the same subnet ID.

If the same subnet ID is used in another subnet during the duplicate check process, a new subnet ID is also randomly generated and the duplicate check process is repeated again. If the unique subnet ID is generated, the generated subnet ID is used. This redundancy check is only performed for the first node registered in the subnet.

After the generation of the subnet ID, the node 100 generates a node ID. The first node 100 registered in the subnet generates its own node ID as zero.

In addition, a node registered to a subnet broadcasts a parent request packet, and if any node in the subnet responds, it knows its own subnet ID. In addition, the node sending a response to the parent request packet becomes the parent node of the new node in address assignment. If more than one node sends a response, the node with the lowest node ID is the parent of the new node.

The response packet to the parent request includes a subnet ID, an ID (P _ID ) of the response node itself, a depth (d) of the response node itself, and a number (n) of responses by the response node. The new node receiving the response packet generates its node ID (C _ID ) based on Equation 1 based on the information included in the received response packet.

At this time, an address is allocated such that a part of the lower bits of the 16-bit short address is the same according to the depth of the tree between the parent node and the child node. According to [Equation 1], the child node has two more addresses than the parent node. The same bit inheritance occurs between the parent and child nodes. In addition, the child node uses a value obtained by adding 1 to the depth of the parent node included in the response packet as its depth.

For example, in FIG. 1, the two nodes 120 and 130 that have received a response from the parent node 110 having the node ID of 41 have a parent depth of 3 (d = 3), and the first response (n = 1) and two respectively. Since the second response (n = 2), the node IDs of the two nodes are 105 and 169, respectively, by Equation 1 above.

In addition, the node 150 that has received a response from the parent node 140 having a node ID of 9 and a node ID of 9 having a node ID of 25 and 41, respectively, has a depth of 2 and corresponds to a third response. Equation 1] generates 57 as the node ID.

Similarly, node 160 having node ID 31 and node 170 having 112 receive responses from parent nodes 180 and 190 having node IDs 15 and 48, respectively. This is the case.

On the other hand, all nodes can respond to the parent request packet, but can respond only to up to four child nodes. As a result, a parent node having four child nodes cannot participate in response packet delivery. One node can only have a maximum of four child nodes, so that the lower bits of the network ID are increased by 2 bits according to the tree depth, so that the lower bits are the same between the parent node and the child nodes.

For example, in FIG. 1, a node having a node ID of 0 and a node having 1 already have four child nodes, and thus cannot respond to a parent request packet for a newly added node. Of course, the above limit of the number of responses may be appropriately changed according to the characteristics of the subnet to be applied or the number of nodes constituting the subnet.

2 is a flowchart illustrating an address generation process of a new node in a method of automatically configuring a network address according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, in step S210, a node newly registered in a subnet (hereinafter referred to as 'node a') broadcasts a parent request packet.

In step S220, the node a determines whether a response packet to the request is received.

As a result of the determination, if a response packet is not received, in step S230, the node a recognizes that the node is the first node registered in the corresponding subnet and randomly generates a subnet ID.

In operation S240, the node a determines whether the generated subnet ID is in use in a neighboring subnet.

As a result of the determination, when the same subnet ID as the generated subnet ID is used in another subnet, the node a returns to step S230 to randomly generate the subnet ID and determines whether the generated subnet ID is used in the neighboring subnet. Repeat this process until you create a unique subnet ID.

On the other hand, if there is no other subnet using the generated subnet ID as a result of the determination, the node a uses the generated subnet ID as its subnet ID in step S250.

Subsequently, in step S260, the node a sets its node ID value and its node depth to '0'.

On the other hand, if a response packet for the request is received as a result of the determination in step S220, the node a sets the node that sent the response packet as a parent node in step S270. In this case, the node a may transmit a network address generation completion signal (for example, an ack acknowledgment signal) indicating that the child node has been added to the node configured as the parent node.

As described above, when there are a plurality of nodes that have sent a response packet, the node a sets the node having the smallest node ID among the nodes which have sent the response as its parent node.

Subsequently, in step S280, the node a generates its own network address based on the information of the parent node included in the response packet sent from the parent node. As described above, the response packet includes the subnet ID, the ID of the response node, the node depth of the response node, and the number of times the response node responded to the children.

The node a equally sets the subnet ID included in the response packet to its own subnet ID, and applies the ID, depth, and number of responses of the response node, that is, the parent node, to the above [Equation 1]. Create

In the above, in the automatic network configuration method according to an embodiment of the present invention, a process of generating a network address of a node newly added to a subnet has been described.

Meanwhile, as described above, all nodes may respond to a parent request packet broadcast from a node newly added to a subnet, and a series of processes thereof will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 3.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a response process for a parent request packet of a node in a method of automatically configuring a network address according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, when a node (hereinafter referred to as 'node b') that is registered in a subnet in step S310 receives a parent request packet broadcast from a newly registered node, in step S320, the node b has its own child. Determine if there are four nodes. In one example, it is determined whether the number n of previously answered is smaller than the set value (eg, 4).

As a result of the determination, when there are not four child nodes, that is, when the number of responses n is smaller than the set value (for example, 4), the node b responds to the node broadcasting the parent request packet in step S330. Send the packet. At this time, the node b transmits the response packet including the subnet ID, its node ID, node depth, and the number of times it has responded to the child node.

Subsequently, in step S340, the node b determines whether a network address generation completion signal (eg, an ack signal) for the response packet is received.

As a result of the determination, when a network address generation completion signal (for example, an ack acknowledgment signal) is received, in step S350, the node b updates the number n of responses by adding 1 to the existing number n of responses. If the network address generation completion signal (eg, ack acknowledgment signal) is not received, the existing response number n is maintained.

On the other hand, as a result of the determination in step S320, if there are four child nodes, that is, a set value (for example, 4), the node b terminates the process without responding to the parent request.

As described above, the method of the present invention may be implemented as a program and stored in a recording medium (eg, CD-ROM, RAM, floppy disk, hard disk, magneto-optical disk, flash memory, etc.).

In the above, specific preferred embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made by any person having ordinary skill in the art without departing from the gist of the present invention attached to the claims. .

1 is a diagram illustrating a network structure configured by a network automatic configuration method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart illustrating an address generation process of a new node in a method for automatically configuring a network according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a response process for a parent request packet of a node in a method for automatically configuring a network according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (16)

In the intelligent home network environment, a new node registering a subnet automatically generates a network address automatically in the network address configuration method, The new node broadcasting a parent request packet; Receiving, by the new node, a response packet from a parent node existing in a subnet; And Generating, by the new node, a network address based on information included in the response packet; Network address automatic configuration method comprising the. The method of claim 1 wherein the new node generates a network address includes: The ID (P _ID ) of the parent node included in the response packet, the node depth (d) of the parent node, and the number of times the parent node responds to other nodes (n) are applied to Equation 2 below to represent the node ID ( Generating a C _ID ); Network address automatic configuration method comprising the. [Equation 2]

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the new node generates a node ID (C _ID ): When there are a plurality of response packets, the number of responses of the parent node included in the plurality of response packets to the other nodes (n) is checked, and the node ID (C) is obtained using the response packet having the smallest number of responses (n). _{And ID} ) is generated. The method of claim 1, After the new node generates a network address, transmitting a network address generation completion signal to a parent node that has sent the response packet; Method for automatically configuring the network address, characterized in that it further comprises. In the intelligent home network environment, a network address autoconfiguration method for automatically generating a network address by a first node newly registering to a subnet, The first node broadcasting a parent request packet; Randomly generating a subnet ID when the first node does not have a response packet to the broadcasted parent request packet; Determining whether the subnet ID generated by the first node is in use in a neighboring subnet and setting a unique subnet ID to its own subnet ID; And Generating, by the first node, its node ID and node depth d to '0'; Network address automatic configuration method comprising the. 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the network address autoconfiguration method comprises: Receiving a broadcasted parent request packet from a second node that the first node newly registers in a subnet; When the first node receives the parent request packet, it is determined whether the number n of previous responses is smaller than a setting value, and when the first node receives the parent request packet, when the first node receives the parent request packet, the first node transmits a response packet to the second node broadcasting the parent request packet. Ignoring the parent request packet when the number of previously answered n is a set value; And When the first node receives a network address generation completion signal from the second node, updating the number n of responses by adding 1 to the number of existing responses n; Method for automatically configuring the network address, characterized in that it further comprises. The response packet of claim 6, wherein the response packet that the first node sends to the second node includes: And a subnet ID, its node ID (P _ID ), a node depth (d), and the number of times of responding to the parent request packet (n). A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing the method of automatically configuring a network address according to any one of claims 1 to 4. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing the method of automatically configuring a network address according to any one of claims 5 to 7. delete delete delete delete delete delete delete

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