Abstract: In response to the demands of fast real-time positioning of a moving object, a single-pixel fast moving object positioning method using geometric moment detection was proposed. The key to the approach was to locate the moving object by detecting the centroid of the moving object. According to the properties of geometric moments, three geometric moment illumination lights were constructed and illuminated the moving object. A single-pixel detector was used to collect the intensities of the reflected or transmitted light after the moving object interacted with the modulated light. According to the theory of single-pixel imaging, the detected intensity values corresponded to the zero-order and first-order geometric moment values. The centroid that identified the object position parameter could be obtained by corresponding calculations from the zero-order and first-order geometric moment values. The proposed method could reach an approximately frame rate of 500 fps and 1 000 fps to position a moving object without imaging. The error of the centroid obtained by the proposed method was within 1.63 pixels, and the mean square error was 0.118 3 pixels. The proposed method provided a new way for tracking of a fast-moving object.