To overcome the difficulty in measurement of the acoustic emission（AE） propagation and attenuation characteristics of aerospace composite cylinders， the theoretical formula for the amplitude attenuation coefficient of hybrid wave was obtained by studying theoretical calculation method of AE wave amplitude attenuation coefficient.The experiments on the composite cylinder were carried out by using two specifications of the AE simulators. The results demonstrate that the actual attenuation curves match well with the theoretical attenuation curves. The signal frequency and strength are different by using different AE simulators. The AE simulator of Φ0.5mm/2H pencil is more suitable for AE detection of composite cylinder.