A real-time hardware implementation of the Hough transform

The paper presents a hardware implementation of algorithms based on the Hough transform (HT) for real-time straight line detection. In particular, the basic HT on the edge points (EHT) and the Gradient-Weighted Hough transform (GWHT) for gray-level images are analyzed in detail and implemented on a pipelined architecture using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). Algorithms execution times are compared with other hardware and software based systems in order to assess the efficiency of the presented approach. The paper shows how the achievable performance can meet the real-time requirements of an industrial inspection application. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.