The invention provides an artificial potential field method for automatic driving vehicle decision-making layer path planning, and the method comprises the steps: S1, building a road environment through an artificial potential field method, and enabling a vehicle to drive in a road boundary; S2, acquiring surrounding information through a vehicle sensing device, and establishing different potential field functions for different types of obstacles, so the vehicle has different processing modes for different obstacles; S3, planning a set of safety paths according to the established potential field environment, and optimizing by using an improved genetic algorithm to find the shortest path. According to the method, the driving environment of an automatic driving vehicle is established by using an artificial potential field method, so that the vehicle performs different driving operations on different types of obstacles, and the improved genetic algorithm is used for optimizing the path, so that the vehicle is driven safely, and the energy consumption is minimum.