Abstract: In order to quickly plan a safe and feasible path for a tugboat in the dynamic environment of escort,a tugboat convergence and tailing path planning method for escort operation is proposed.Firstly,the whole process of escort sailing is divided into three stages according to the environmental characteristics and focuses,then for the problem of zigzagging discontinuity of the path generated by the A^* algorithm,the cross product detection and B-spline smoothing are introduced to optimize the path,and for the problem of bypassing the ship’s tail,the optimization of the heading and the addition of virtual obstacles are introduced to constrain the path searching,and finally,the corresponding path refreshment strategies are set up for the different stages.Simulation results show that this method can meet the demand of path planning for tugboat arriving at the escort navigation point,has better dynamic collision avoidance effect,and has higher robustness in the face of complex environment,which is suitable for tugboat escort navigation scenario.