Abstract: Target acquisition device with an imaging sensor, a signal processing circuit and an evaluating circuit comprising a computer for implementing a gray-value analysis of the output signals of the imaging sensor, wherein the signal processing circuit contains threshold value transmitters for the brightness transitions and for the local extreme values, a selection of three values, bright/reference/dark, is effected in the signal evaluation circuit and a centroid of the target is determined from the latter, particularly by means of producing coordinates of the target, and, in order to acquire the target according to the position finding by means of comparison of the measured parameters with the stored parameters in the evaluating circuit, the computer also evaluates the mathematical signs of the received gradient image for determining the target direction, and in that, in addition to a binary image, edges and non-edges, edge points lying on a straight line can also be obtained, particularly from one or more image