An integrated formation path planning method based on improved ant colony algorithm and artificial potential field method is proposed for multi-robot path planning,which constructs the formation of multiple robots based on the leader-follower method,uses the improved Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to provide global paths for the leader under complex obstacle environments,and uses the improved Artificial Potential Field (APF) to make decisions for obstacle avoidance.In the global path planning stage,the ACO improves the optimality and safety of the path.In the local path planning stage,the gravitational and repulsive coefficient of APF and the obstacle avoidance function are optimized to solve the problems of the standard APF of being prone to falling into local optimums and being susceptible to the interference of complex environments.In order to improve the formation movement capability of multiple robots,the leader adopts an adaptive navigation strategy to improve the path tracking capability,and the follower adaptively corrects the motion speed to better maintain the formation.The experimental results show that the proposed method successfully coordinates the multi-robot path planning and formation problems.