Abstract This paper presents a realization of fractional-order Band pass-filter (FOBF) based on the concepts of fractional order inductors and fractional order capacitors. The FOBF is designed and implemented using both simulation and hardware approaches. The proposed filter order is considered up to second order or less with any real positive number. One of the cases is considered when α ≤ 1 and β ≥ 1. In the second case, the filter is designed when β ≤ 1 and α ≥ 1. In order to calculate the optimal filter parameters, the modified Particle Swarm Optimization (mPSO) algorithm has been utilized for coefficient tuning. Also, a generalized approach to design any second order FOBF is discussed in this work. The realization and performance assessment have been carried out in simulation environment as well as in lab experiment with field programmable analog array (FPAA) development board. The experimental results indicate the value of efforts to realize the fractional filter.