Using machine vision technology to solve the problem of textile edge detection is the primary method in the field of textile edge detection. Edge detection algorithms are the key to improve the speed and precision of textile edge detection. In this paper, according to the requirements of the edge detection system in practical production, the problems existing in various image processing algorithms applied to the textile edge detection are studied, and the grayscale images of the textile with various characteristics are analyzed. Then an adaptive threshold edge detection algorithm is proposed. The algorithm can obtain the edge position of different textile quickly and accurately. The experiments show that the accuracy of the algorithm can reach 0.1 mm and the algorithm has a small running scale, which meets the requirements of high speed and high precision for the edge detection algorithm, and provides support for the following overall design of the edge detection system.