An approach to improving the performance of matched field localization by introducing a generalized spa-tial filter to suppress interference noise and pass the signal of interest with minimal distortion is presented. The spatial filter is designed by minimizing the maximum distortion of the filtered replica vectors within passband while guaran- teeing the norm of the filter response within the stopband to be lower than some given threshold values. We show that the design problem can be formulated as the second-order cone programming (SOCP) which can be solved efficiently via the well-established interior point method. A modified matched field processor is given to ultimately eliminate the effect of the distortion in the spatially filtered replica vectors. Computer simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach by localizing a weak source in the pres-ence of a strong interferer and noise. An approach to improving the performance of matched field localization by introducing a generalized spa-tial filter to suppress interference noise and pass the signal of interest with minimal distortion is presented. The spatial filter is designed by minimizing the maximum distortion of the filtered replica vectors within passband while guaran- teeing the norm of the filter response within the stopband to be lower than some given threshold values. We show that the design problem can be formulated as the second-order cone programming (SOCP) which can be effectively via the well -established interior point method. A modified matched field processor is given to ultimately eliminate the effect of the distortion in the spatially filtered replica vectors. Computer simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach by localizing a weak source in the pres-ence of a strong interferer and noise.