FPGA Based Standalone Embedded Web Server for Remote Control of Display Devices

The Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices are quickly replacing the microcontrollers for embedded applications since they offer both the performance of hardware and flexibility of software computing. Custom logic design implementation can be done using FPGAs for faster control systems and it also adds the advantage of parallel processing which are not available in processors and controllers that works sequentially for embedded systems. Integrating web server functionality with these devices offers remote access and controls them over Internet in the form of web pages on a web browser. This work presents the concept of creating an embedded web server using APSOC and FPGA to control a Video Graphics Array (VGA) display remotely through Internet. The proposed system has been designed and first implemented in Nexys 3, development platform based on Xilinx Spartan-6 LX 16 FPGA, then finally on ZYNQ-7000 APSOC (Zybo).