  We consider the problem of matching a template to a noisy signal. Motivated
by some recent proposals in the signal processing literature, we suggest a
rank-based method and study its asymptotic properties using some
well-established techniques in empirical process theory combined with H\'ajek's
projection method. The resulting estimator of the shift is shown to achieve a
parametric rate of convergence and to be asymptotically normal. Some numerical
simulations corroborate these findings.
