Aiming for the depletion of node energy consumption caused by the simplification of Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector(AODV) routing metrics, and the resulting network regionalization and high latency problem of path congestion, this paper proposes a routing protocol with multi-metric path selection mechanism—M-AODV. Based on the AODV routing protocol, in the route discovery phase, a node with higher energy and stronger signal strength is selected as a routing node according to the set energy threshold and the received signal strength threshold. In the path selection phase, firstly, according to the received signal strength, congestion degree and hop count of the physical layer, the stability value of each link is calculated; secondly, the stable value of each path is accumulated to obtain the stable value of the entire path; finally, the path with the largest stable value is selected as the optimal path. Simulation experiments are performed by using NS2.35 simulation software. The results show that the end-to-end delay of improved routing strategy is reduced by nearly 30% compared with that of AODV. It is superior to traditional AODV and I-AODV-SE routing algorithms in terms of packet transmission rate, throughput and node survivability.