vLab, a high speed multi-accesses parallel processing remote laboratory access for FPGA design technology

An innovative approach is utilized to design a remote access system to communicate with hardware design laboratories, called virtual laboratory (vLab). Through a server vLab provides multiple and concurrent accesses to FPGA design facilities in a laboratory located at Northern Illinois University. By using parallel communication channel (EPP) and MS Windows Remote Desktop (RDP) vLab is shown to provide a high speed, multi-access, parallel processing services to distance applications. vLab carries two client interface viewers (GUI) for each user, one to provide the image of the physical FPGA board located in a remote lab, and the other one directly utilizes the FPGA chip capabilities, customized according to the users´ application needs. Because it uses RDP capability vLab inherits the benefits of resource (e.g. files) sharing between the server and client environments. vLab has also the capability of handling multiple boards (processors) for a single user without adding any extra hardware.