The Theory of Multiresolution Analysis Frames and Applications to Filter Banks

The notion of a frame multiresolution analysis (FMRA) is formulated. An FMRA is a natural extension to affine frames of the classical notion of a multiresolution analysis (MRA). The associated theory of FMRAs is more complex than that of MRAs. A basic result of the theory is a characterization of frames of integer translates of a function φ in terms of the discontinuities and zero sets of a computable periodization of the Fourier transform of φ. There are subband coding filter banks associated with each FMRA. Mathematically, these filter banks can be used to construct new frames for finite energy signals. As with MRAs, the FMRA filter banks provide perfect reconstruction of all finite energy signals in any one of the successive approximation subspacesV_jdefining the FMRA. In contrast with MRAs, the perfect reconstruction filter bank associated with an FMRA can be narrow band. Because of this feature, in signal processing FMRA filter banks achieve quantization noise reduction simultaneously with reconstruction of a given narrow-band signal.