Many emerging communication applications transmit packets with small payloads, yet require rich metadata context for the proper functioning of the various involved protocol layers. Packet header compression becomes vital to efficiently support these emerging communication applications in resource-constrained environments, such as the Internet of Things (IoT). As a basis for the survey of the existing packet header compression standards and recent packet header compression research studies, we first introduce a novel set of five principles of packet header compression, namely the principles of identification, definition, placement, compression, and control. Based on these five principles, we survey the major header compression standards, spanning from the Thinwire protocol from 1984, via Robust Header Compression (RoHC) version 1 (2001) and version 2 (2008) to Static Context Header Compression (SCHC, 2020) and QPACK currently in draft status. We also comprehensively survey the recent header compression research studies in the past six years (2016–2021), following the introduced five principles as taxonomy. The survey of header compression research includes novel compression concepts and evaluations in various modern environments, such as in wireless mesh networks. We conclude the survey by outlining major open packet header compression research challenges along the five principles.

中文翻译：

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数据包标头压缩：基于原理的标准调查和最新研究


许多新兴的通信应用程序传输具有较小有效负载的数据包，但需要丰富的元数据上下文才能使所涉及的各种协议层正常运行。数据包标头压缩对于在资源有限的环境（例如物联网 (IoT)）中有效支持这些新兴通信应用至关重要。作为对现有包头压缩标准和最近包头压缩研究的调查的基础，我们首先介绍一组新颖的包头压缩五项原则，即识别原则、定义原则、放置原则、压缩原则和控制原则。基于这五个原则，我们调查了主要的标头压缩标准，从 1984 年的 Thinwire 协议，到稳健标头压缩 (RoHC) 第 1 版 (2001) 和第 2 版 (2008)，再到静态上下文标头压缩 (SCHC，2020) QPACK目前处于草案状态。我们还全面调查了过去六年（2016-2021）最近的标头压缩研究，遵循引入的五项分类原则。标头压缩研究的调查包括各种现代环境（例如无线网状网络）中的新颖压缩概念和评估。我们通过根据五个原则概述开放数据包标头压缩研究的主要挑战来结束调查。