The path planning of handling robot in Chinese medicine factory is the key problem to improve production efficiency and reduce labor cost. In view of the complex layout characteristics in the handling process of Chinese medicine plant, this paper studies and improves the existing path planning algorithm. Firstly, through the analysis of the production environment of the Chinese medicine factory, a suitable map model was established. Then, combined with the operation environment of the handling robot in the Chinese medicine factory, the handling robot has A large number of nodes and many kinds of paths. The improved A* algorithm is used to plan the moving path of the robot. The effectiveness and practicability of the proposed path planning algorithm are verified by Matlab simulation test. Finally, the path conflict problem is solved.