A novel measuring method for air velocity using acoustic sensor linear array is researched. According to the concept of effective sound velocity in the field of atmospheric acoustics

receiving model for each element is established in stable air flow

so near-field output model for acoustic sensor linear array is constructed. A multiple signal classification algorithm for air velocity estimation（ MUSIC—AVE） is proposed

MUSIC—AVE can be used to estimate air velocity with high precision. To reduce computational complexity

a fast air velocity estimation（ FAVE） algorithm is proposed. Although the estimation precision of FAVE is not so high as the MUSIC-AVE algorithm

it doesn ’t need spectral search

and has stronger real-time property. Cramér-Rao bound（ CRB）expression for estimation on air velocity is derived. Computer simulation experiment verifies effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.