Help needed in application of convolution

[sreejajayesh]

I have a one dimensional signal. I have another smaller one dimensional signal which is a part of the first signal. I want to locate its position. In a journal I read that we can use convolution for that. Can anyone throw some light on it?

 

[zorro]

You can locate the position looking at the correlation function between the two signals.
The correlation has a maximum where the signals are "aligned".
Its value (normalized by the standard deviations) has an absolute value <= 1. Values close to 1 correspond to high similarity.
There is a correspondence between correlation and convolution; roughly speaking:

correl(x[n],y[n],m) = k*convol(x[n],y[-n],m)

so you can use convolution as well.
Regards

Z