A novel feature-domain 2D motion estimation system based on the straight-line Hough transform (SLHT) is presented. This system implements the motion estimation technique proposed in [ 5 ] . It operates on 256 x 256-pixel binary images and consists of two main blocks. T h e first block does preprocessing work including smoothing the boundary, tracing and integrating the contours, and detecting dominant points. The second block computes the Hough transform on contour segments as well as the rotation and translation parameters. Each of the modules has been implemented (gate level) and simulated using Mentor Graphics tools. Finally, the experimental results have been presented and compared with the results of the software implementation. 0-7803-3134-6/96 $5.00 Q 1996 IEEE