A path planning using potential field method is very useful for the real-time navigation of mobile robots. However, the method needs high modeling cost to calculate the potential field because of complex preprocessing, and mobile robots may get stuck into local minima. In this paper, An efficient path planning algorithm for multiple mobile robots, based on the potential field method, was proposed. In the algorithm. the concepts of subgoals and obstacle priority were introduced. The subgoals can be used to escape local minima, or to design and change the paths of mobile robots in the work space. In obstacle priority, all the objects (obstacles and mobile robots) in the work space have their own priorities, and the object having lower priority should avoid the objects having higher priority than it has. In this paper, first, potential based path planning method was introduced, next an efficient collision-avoidance algorithm for multiple mobile robots, moving in the obstacle environment, was proposed by using subgoals and obstacle priority. Finally, the developed algorithm was demonstrated graphically to show the usefulness of the algorithm.