Patent ID: 7805538

Claim:
A method of Address Management in a network which comprises a plurality of devices, comprising at least one STAtion (STA), and at least one Address Resource Management (ARM) unit, wherein each of the devices includes a stack of communication protocol layers comprising at least an Upper network or data link Layer (UL) and a Lower data link Layer (LL), the UL of each of the devices having a respective UL address within the network, the method comprising: associating, respectively disassociating, at least one device in at least one LL network, which device being allowed to exchange together data packets emitted and received at the LL level, the associating including the device sending a UL address to the ARM unit; allocating, respectively releasing, one given LL address per UL address of each one of the at least one device which is associated, respectively disassociated, in a given LL network, the allocating being carried out by the ARM unit; and handling one ARM Translation Table (TT) per LL network, the TT comprising one entry per device of a given LL network, which entry comprising the UL address and the LL address, the handling being carried out by the ARM unit, wherein the device associated in a given LL network performs address conversion between an LL address and a UL address through an Address Management protocol defining messages exchanged with the corresponding at least one ARM unit, wherein the Address Management protocol comprises the following messages: a Lower Layer Address Request (LLAR) message sent by any device to the ARM unit, the LLAR message comprising a specified UL address in order to request the corresponding LL address; an Upper Layer Address Request (ULAR) message sent by any device to the ARM unit, the ULAR message comprising a specified LL address in order to request the corresponding UL address; and an Address Relation Indication (ARI) message broadcast to all associated devices of the LL network to manage advertising of an LL-UL address couple by the ARM unit: in response to either the LLAR message or the ULAR message, the ARI message comprising the UL address and the LL address, respectively sent or requested via the LLAR message or the ULAR message; and each time a device is associated or disassociated.