The traditional cam follower mechanism design method cannot meet the cam follower mechanisms design requirements of multi-factor and multi-level.Therefore,a meta-heuristic algorithm was proposed to optimize the cam follower mechanism.The simplified schematic diagram of the cam follower mechanism was constructed,and the design optimization of the cam follower mechanism was realized by using the meta-heuristic algorithm,and the optimization effect was verified by simulation.The structure of the cam follower mechanism was analyzed,and the mathematical model of the cam follower mechanism was established;three optimization goals were defined and eight constraint conditions were added at the same time.The meta-heuristic optimization algorithm ant optimizer was developed,and the corresponding code was written.The MATLAB software was used to simulate the cam follower mechanism,and the results were compared and analyzed with those of the traditional calculation method.The simulation results show that by using the meta-heuristic algorithm,the size of the mechanism can be reduced by a maximum of 9.5%,the force required to raise the driven mechanism can be reduced by a maximum of 2.4%,and the maximum contact stress can be reduced by a maximum of 12.1%.At the same time,the maximum values of the displacement tracking error,velocity and acceleration of the follower mechanism are also greatly reduced.It is verified that the meta-heuristic algorithm can effectively achieve the design optimization of cam follower mechanism.