Here's a solution that involves a loop but it's very fast. This searches for a submatrix key within a larger matrix main. Let's say key is 2x2; it will loop through all neighboring columns of main searching for key within each pair of neighboring columns. This works no matter what size key is as long as it has less columns than main. The variable isInMain will be a logical indicating whether key is in main.
It also uses strfind() which strangely operates on doubles.
Example that results in 'true'
main = randi(10, [7,10]);
key = main([3,4],[4,5]);
Example that results in 'false'
main = randi(10, [7,10]);
key = [40, 50; 11 9];
The code
isInMain = false;
finished = false;
colIdx = 0;
searchFor = true(1, size(key,1));
while ~isInMain && ~finished
colIdx = colIdx + 1;
currColumns = colIdx : colIdx + size(key,2) - 1;
ismem = ismember(main(:,currColumns), key, 'rows');
isInMain = ~isempty(strfind(ismem', searchFor));
finished = max(currColumns)+1 > size(main, 2);
end
