NASA has applied for a patent on a novel method of implementing a cascade back-propagation (CBP) neural network in VLSI hardware. Previously, even hardware-based neural networks required software-based learning algorithms. By implementing CBP learning in hardware along with the neural net, the time required to train the network is greatly reduced. NASA is calling the new system On-Chip Cascade Back Propagation Learning. Details are available in a NASA Tech Brief (PDF format, free registration required).