图像分割在图像工程中位于重要位置，广泛应用于各个领域。提出了基于自治体搜索和区域相关性的图像边沿检测算法，算法中有 4个种类的自治体，分别完成 0°、4 5°、90°和 135°方向上相邻区域灰度相关性和其几何特征相关性的比较，来判别图像中的边沿点，完成边沿检测。利用该算法对样本图像进行处理，取得了较好的实验结果。此外，将该算法与同类算法 (例如 Prewitt算子、Sobel算子、Canny算子 )进行了比较，比较结果说明本文算法在某些方面具有一定的优势。

Image segmentation owns the important status in the structure of image engineering and is of considerable interest in many fields. The algorithm of edge detection based on the agent searching approach and the correlation of neighbor regions is proposed in the paper. There are four species of agents in the proposed algorithm. The four species of agents can respectively compare the correlation of gray level of neighbor regions with the correlation of geometrical features of neighbor regions at 0 degree, 45 degrees, 90 degrees and 135 degrees to judge whether the pixels lie in the edge of the object or not and finally accomplish edge detection. Experimental results of the proposed algorithm are satisfactory. In addition, there is the comparison of experimental results between the proposed algorithm and some algorithms of edge detection in the section of experimental results, such as Prewitt operator, Sobel operator and Canny operator. The comparison of experimental results demonstrates the proposed algorithm has good performance on some aspects.