Abstract: Based on the navigation potential function, the path planning problem was studied for the MOTOMAN MH6 robot manipulator. According to the geometric features of the manipulator, the simplified model can be obtained. And by the method of sphere enveloping and analyzing the collision condition between the manipulator and obstacles, the free space of the manipulator was computed. The local minima points except goal were eliminated in advance by navigation potential function which can make the path arrive the goal, and the problem of local minima in traditional potential method was also be solved. The problem of selecting the value for the control parameter of the navigation function was explained by numerical simulation. The effectiveness and feasibility of the method is also validated in the virtual platform based on OpenGL.