**2. Evacuation guidance systems using emitting sound stimuli**

First, an overview and advantages of evacuation guidance systems using emitting sound sources on a set of loudspeakers are described. Conventional guidance systems assume that evacuees can determine their evacuation route based on guide lights in an emergency situation. However, it might be difficult for them to find the relevant or correct route if they are not familiar with the spatial location. Therefore, there are two types of evacuation guidance systems that use acoustic stimuli to indicate the evacuation direction. In this study, we propose a method that uses an emitting sound source on a loudspeaker along routes to guide evacuees. If several loudspeakers are placed in the objective area, the sound sources could be sequentially emitted from one loudspeaker to another. People would be able to recognize them as the stream of sound in the evacuation direction. The recognition of the direction of the sound stream is generalized by the sequence of sound localization for a singlesound source.

In shopping centers, a wide floor is occupied by display cases of goods, which can be an obstacle to evacuation in the event of a disaster. The proposed new evacuation guidance system would be able to provide a pathway to avoid these obstacles because it shows the sequence of the route to exit by emitting sound. This study describes the feasibility and performance of the new evacuation guidance system using the emitting acoustic sound stimuli.
