In this paper, a novel swing vane rotary compressor (SVC) was introduced, which had significant advantages—simple mechanism, reduced frictional loss, reliable operation, and a comparatively higher compression ratio. Based on the swing vane compressor geometry model, thermodynamic model and kinetic model, the mathematical model of optimum design was established, and further theoretical and experimental studies were conducted. The length of the cylinder, radius of the rotor and cylinder were defined as design variables and the reciprocal of EER as objective function. The complex optimization method was adopted to study the structure of the swing vane compressor. The theoretical model could provide an effective method for predicting compressor performance, which would also contribute to structural optimization of the SVC. The study shows that the friction loss of the compressor are greatly reduced by optimized design in a given initial value, and the EER increased by 8.55%.