A high speed algorithm for circular object location

This paper analyses how the Hough transform approach to circular object location could be speeded up by at least an order of magnitude — e.g. for certain low-cost automated inspection applications. Image sampling is found to be required and an effective but simply implemented strategy is devised which achieves speedup factors of up to 25 with real images. The algorithm is highly robust against shape defects and partial occlusions, and in addition robustness is easily monitored in practical situations.