Aiming at the problems of low accuracy of positioning and complex localization process for acoustic emission (AE) sources for metal plate structure, an acoustic emission source localization imaging method based on timereversal focusing was studied. In this method, the principle of time reversal (TR) and positioning imaging was firstly analyzed. A plane monitoring model consisting of four acoustic emission sensors was established. Finally, the experimental study on the location of the acoustic emission source on an aluminum alloy plate was carried out. The experimental results show that this method can effectively realize the positioning and imaging of the acoustic emission source of aluminum alloy plate without complicated signal processing, and can control the error within an effective range.