The present work is carried out under contract (93:400) with the Swedish Research Council for Engineering Sciences (TFR). We would also acknowledge many discussions with M. L. Padgett, W. Friday and J. L. Johnson. The corresponding author can be reached at lindblad@particle.kth.se or fax + 468 15 86 74 Inherent Features of Wavelets and Pulse Coupled Neural Networks Biologically inspired image/signal processing like the pulse coupled neural network (PCNN) and the wavelet (packet) transforms are described. The two methods are applied to two-dimensional data in order to demonstrate the fea- tures of each method, pinpoint differences as well as similarities. The inherent properties (with respect to filtering, segmentation, etc) of the two appraches with respect to detectors for physics experiments as well as remote sensing are discussed. wavelets, pulse coupled neural networks, image/signal pre-processing, segmentation, edge detection, object isolation Thomas Lindblad Jason M. Kinser Royal Institute of Technology