## 2 Related Works  
Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Networks (MANETS) present special features which must be born in mind when an address configuration protocol is implemented. There are many solutions for conventional networks (e.g., RFCs 3315 [5], 4861 [7], 4862 [8] and so on) but Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Networks were not taken into account in their design. It is necessary, therefore, to provide support for multi-hop communication, dynamic topologies and the merging and partitioning of networks, events that are typical in Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Networks.  
There are numerous works that present proposals for address configuration in a Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Network using the _Stateless_ and _Stateful_ mechanism. Without doubt, the most representative are those described in [2,9-21]. [PERSON] _et al._[22-24] carried out a rigorous study of the problems of the auto-configuration in Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Networks, presenting an itemized review of the more representative auto-configuration protocols. A comprehensive review of the main auto-configuration protocols can be found in [25].  
The _Internet Engineering Task Force_ (IETF) [26] includes what is perhaps the best known work group in this field, the so-called _Ad Hoc Network Autoconfiguration Work Group_ (Autoconf WG) [1] whose principal purpose is to describe the addressing model for _ad hoc_ networks and how the nodes can set their addresses in these networks. It is essential that such models do not cause problems to other components of an _ad hoc_ system such as standard applications which are executed in an _ad hoc_ node or Internet nodes connected to the _ad hoc_ nodes. The work of this group can include the development of new protocols if the existing IP auto-configuration mechanisms turn out to be inadequate. Nevertheless, the first task of this work group is to describe a practical addressing model for _ad hoc_ networks.  
The solutions described previously represent significant contributions to aid our comprehension of the problem, but we consider that all these approaches only handle a subset of the network conditions enumerated as follows:  
1. Dynamic Topology: the nodes in the network can move arbitrarily and may join and leave the network dynamically.
2. Message loss and failure in the nodes: message loss can be quite frequent and can result in duplicate IP address allocation if it is not managed correctly. The nodes can abruptly depart from the network due to a link failure or an accident.
3. _Partitioning_ and _merging_: the network can split into multiple networks and, later, join with others. During network merging it is possible to have duplicated IP addresses in the fused network.
4. Address concurrent requests: multiple nodes may want to join the network simultaneously.
5. Limited Energy and Bandwidth: the nodes in a Mobile _Ad Hoc_ Network have limited energy and the links have a limited bandwidth, therefore, the communication overhead which is incurred should be low.  
In this work a solution similar to DAAP [27,28] and to the one given in [29] that guarantees uniqueness in the IP address allocation under a wide set of network conditions is proposed. In our approach, the majority of address allocations imply local communication, thus causing low communication overhead and low latency.