Aiming at the problem of low efficiency of algorithm in mobile robot path planning, poor adaptability in complex environment and easy falling into local optimum, the wind driven optimization algorithm is applied to path planning. Firstly, the use of the surrounding point set algorithm helped to determine a set of grid points, which was around the critical obstacle. After generating the initial path based on the surrounding point set algorithm, the quantum wind driven algorithm was utilized to optimize the generated wind path. The comparison of the wind driven optimization algorithm, quantum bat algorithm and quantum particle swarm optimization was conducted on 10 maps. It indicated that the wind driven optimization algorithm in both the path length and algorithm efficiency was superior to the other two algorithms. Finally, the algorithms are employed in mobile robot. The better performance of wind driven optimization algorithm is consistent with that of the map tests.