A wavelet network concept, which is based on wavelet transform theory, is proposed as an alternative to feedforward neural networks for approximating arbitrary nonlinear functions. The basic idea is to replace the neurons by ;wavelons', i.e., computing units obtained by cascading an affine transform and a multidimensional wavelet. Then these affine transforms and the synaptic weights must be identified from possibly noise corrupted input/output data. An algorithm of backpropagation type is proposed for wavelet network training, and experimental results are reported.