Abstract: To extract the non-stationary or transient features of targets in complicated underwater environment and achieve high detection probability, a novel passive detection method of underwater acoustic target based on time-fre-quency analysis and statistical model is proposed, and three passive detection models are established based on short time Fourier transform(STFT), Wigner-Ville distribution, and wavelet transform, respectively. Target detection is conducted with these three models on the basis of the measured data of ship-radiated noise, and the results show that all three models achieve satisfactory target detection, of which the model based on wavelet transform behaves best.