This paper describes an object detection system based on pulse coupled neural networks. The system is designed and implemented to illustrate the power, flexibility and potential the pulse coupled neural networks have in real-time image processing. In the preprocessing stage, a pulse coupled neural network suppresses noise by smoothing the input image. In the segmentation stage, a second pulse coupled neural-network iteratively segments the input image. During each iteration, with the help of a control module, the segmentation network deletes regions that do not satisfy the retention criteria from further processing and produces an improved segmentation of the retained image. In the final stage each group of connected regions that satisfies the detection criteria is identified as an instance of the object of interest.