In order to solve the problems of traditional artificial potential field method in path planning, the situations of target unreachable and local minimum points were analyzed. The gravitational function was segmented to avoid the situation that the gravitational force was too large to encounter obstacles. By introducing the distance factor between the robot and the target point, the generation and calculation mechanism of the repulsive force potential field were improved to solve the problem of unreachable target when the obstacle was near the target point. Based on the improved artificial potential field function, a new method of constructing additional traction force by deflection angle was proposed to solve the local minimum point problem. The improved algorithm was compared and simulated in MATLAB.The experimental results show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.