In order to improve the higher frequency control of path tracking of automatic rice transplanter, a path tracking control method was proposed based on model prediction. The automatic driving controller was designed based on the model prediction algorithm. By simplifying the model of the agricultural machinery vehicle, linearizing the kinematic equation and formulating the constraint quantity, the current state quantity p=(x,y,θ) can predict the vehicle state at the next time and control the automatic rice transplanter to walk along the reference path. The feasibility of the controller was verified by establishing a simulation model in Matlab. The results showed that the lateral deviation of the straight-line path tracking was less than 0.02m, the heading deviation was less than 0.08°, the average value of the lateral deviation of the curve path was 0.022m, and the average value of the heading deviation was 0.699°, which can be used for the actual vehicle test. In addition, taking the rice transplanter as the test platform, the robustness of the algorithm was verified by setting different vehicle speeds. The average horizontal and heading deviations of straight-line path tracking were 0.021m and 6.187°, respectively, and the average horizontal and heading deviations of curve path tracking were 0.450m and 10.107°, respectively, which can meet the needs of the automatic driving rice transplanter for path tracking accuracy and real-time performance, and provide a reference for the research of agricultural machinery path tracking control.