Abstract: The spatial distribution of echo highlights is the main characteristics of underwater target for target length estimation, vital parts location, target recognition and classification in active sonar application. The ad-vantages and disadvantages of various methods for echo highlight extraction are discussed in this paper. In order to improve the resolution of highlights in the aspect domain, the compressive sensing algorithm of FOCal Undetermined System Solver (FOCUSS) is applied to aspect angle estimation in echo highlights extraction processing. Meanwhile the proposed method is compared with Conventional Beamformer (CBF) and sub-array Minimum Variance Distortionless Response (MVDR) algorithm. Through measured data processing, the results show that the output of the FOCUSS algorithm has a needle shaped main-lobe with unobvious side-lobes and its resolution is higher than that of CBF and sub-array MVDR processing. On the other hand, a higher signal-to-noise ratio is demanded in the FOCUSS algorithm for highlight extraction application.