Chris,

Circuit Cellar had an article on small robot vision some time back, see how they did that.

I think an 8052 ~MAY~ be able to do what you propose. However, committing to such a relatively limited platform for such a relatively difficult task may be a bad engineering decision. You may find that as the deadline nears the hardware just isn't up to the task, and then you have little time to implement a more powerful solution. On the other hand, if you can accurately gauge how much memory and MIPS are required, you may find an 8052 or other microcontroller solution appropriate.

Good luck!

Cory Spackman