Artificial potential field (APF) is a widely used method for local path planning of autonomous mobile robot. So far, many different types of APF have been implemented. Once the artificial potential functions are selected, how to choose appropriate parameters of the functions is also an important work. In this paper, a detailed analysis is given on how to choose proper parameters of artificial functions to eliminate free path local minima and avoid collision between robots and obstacles. Two kinds of potential functions: Gaussian type and Quadratic type of potential functions are used to solve the above local minima problem respectively. To avoid local minima occurred in realistic situations such as 1) a case that the potential of the goal is affected excessively by potential of the obstacle, 2) a case that the potential of the obstacle is affected excessively by potential of the goal, the design guidelines for selecting appropriate parameters of potential functions are proposed.