High-speed fibre-optic laser scanning systems are being used in automated industrial manufacturing environments to determine surface defects. Recent methods of surface defect detection involve the use of fibre-optic light emitting and detection assemblies. This thesis deals with the design and development o f a new high-speed photoelectronic system. In this work, two sources of emitting diode were examined, LED (light emitting diode) and laser diode. A line of five emitting diodes and five receiving photodiodes were used as light sources and detectors respectively. These arrays of emitting diodes and photodectectors were positioned opposite each other. Data capture was controlled and analysed by PC using Labview software. The system was used to measure the dimensions of the surface defects, such as holes (1 mm), blind holes (2 mm) and notches in different materials. The achieved results show that even though this system was used mainly for 2-D scanning, it may also be operated as a limited 3-D vision inspection system. This system furthermore showed that all the metal materials examined were able to reflect a signal of the infrared wavelength. A newly developed technique o f using an angled array o f fibres allows an adjustable resolution to be obtained with the system, with a maximum system resolution of approximately 1 0 0 |im (the diameter o f the collecting fibre core). This system was successfully used to measure various materials surface profile, surface roughness, thickness, and reflectivity. Aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper, tufnol, and polycarbonate materials were all capable of being examined with the system. The advantages of this new system may be seen as faster detection, lower cost, less bulky, greater resolution and flexibility.