This paper propos s an active vehicle navigation system integrating real-time traffic information and images to solve the addressed problems. The proposed system was built on a DM3730 embedded platform, equipped with a CPS module, a CCD camera module, and an electronic compass. An augmented reality navigation is designed to assist drivers in obtaining guidance of the navigation path more efficiently. In addition, the nearby real-time traffic information and images are actively provided according to the current location of the driver, which makes the pertinent traffic information more easily available to the driver anytime and anywhere. For active path planning, not only an enhanced A* shortest path algorithm is applied by integrating real time and history traffic information, but also the shortest path method for the global region and the shortest time method for the local region are automatically adopted for drivers.