Abstract: In order to solve the problem of high error in the measurement of underwater acoustic radiation of shallow water targets by traditional single hydrophone method or beamforming method, an inverse frequency response function(IFRF)based inversion of underwater sound source level method in shallow water is introduced.Based on the virtual source method, a calculation model sound field in shallow water is constructed and the basic principle of the inversion algorithm is described in detail. The feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm are simulated and analyzed, and the verification experiments are carried out in the waveguide pool and the lake respectively. The results show that it is accurate and feasible to use IFRF method to invert the target underwater radiated noise source level in shallow water environment, and it has high inversion accuracy.