There is an increase in using electronic power converters like rectifiers in industry nowadays. These converters reduce the supply power factor and introduce harmonics into the source. Hence, it is becoming more necessary to improve the source power factor and to reduce harmonics. Active power factor correction is used in this work. The boost converter is used as it is the most popular topology for active power factor correction. Advanced optimization techniques are used to design the controller for the boost converter. These techniques include the particle swarm and the ant lion optimization methods. In this paper, the design and simulation of a single phase rectifier supplying a DC motor is investigated with and without active power factor correction. The well-known software package MATLAB / SIMULINK is used for simulation. The source power factor with and without using active power factor correction are compared and hence the effect of using the active power factor correction is explored. It is found that the source power factor is greatly improved and the total harmonic distortion is greatly reduced. This is very important for improving the quality of the power supply.