filter bank

The term filter bank is used for a group (a "bank", i.e., a row) of bandpass filters (electronic circuits that filters away all but a specific band of frequencies within an input electronic signal). Some radio telescope receivers incorporate filter banks to provide some analysis and they are used in radio communications. An input signal (e.g., received by an antenna) is fanned out into the filters, and a recording of the amplitudes of their output signals is much like the filtered images resulting from of using multiple filters (sequentially) to image a source in visible light. The filter bank output can be thought of as the data divided into frequency bands, or as a very low spectral resolution spectral energy distribution (SED).