Incentive Stackelberg game-based path planning for payload transportation with two quadrotors

This paper proposes a path planning approach to the task of transporting a cable-suspended payload with two quadrotors. The transporting system is provided with a desired payload path which is predefined by the user without the consideration of system dynamics. The path planning problem is to find the optimal paths for the quadrotors, which can make the payload move along the closest path to the desired one under the constraint of system dynamics. This problem is formulated as an incentive dynamic Stackelberg game where one quadrotor plays a leader role while the other plays a follower role. By using an incentive strategy, a game solution can be found based on the linearised dynamic system. Some simulation results are provided to show the performance of the proposed path planning approach. The planned paths are also used in real experiments where the paths are tracked by two quadrotors using PID controllers.