The ocean ambient noise caused by wind,rain,ships,halobios and industries is an eternal sound field in the ocean,which contains rich frequency bands. Whether in the process of active or passive detection of underwater targets,the ocean ambient noise is considered as the interference factors in the underwater acoustic channel. However, the ocean ambient noise contains a lot of information of water body,sea surface,seabed,halobios,etc.,which can be used to obtain information of the seawater,seabed,etc. by inversion. In this paper,the development status of acoustic imaging based on ocean ambient noise at home and abroad is summarized,and the technical development trend in this field is predicted. Underwater target detection based on ocean ambient noise has great significance in detecting and developing ocean resources,and safeguarding national sovereignty and national marine environmental security.