In this research, a soft computing approach based on a Nature-inspired technique, the Fractional-Order Darwinian Particle Swarm Optimization (FO-DPSO) algorithm, is hybridized with feed-forward artificial neural network (FF-ANN) to suggest and calculate better solutions for non-linear second-order ordinary differential equation (ODE) representing the corneal shape model (CSM). The unknown weights involved in approximate solutions obtained through ANN are tuned with the help of FO-DPSO. To test the robustness of our approach and conditionality of CSM, we have considered several cases of CSM with different aspects of the problem. Solutions obtained by Adam's method are used as a reference point for the sake of comparison. We establish it that FO-DPSO is a suitable technique for tuning the unknown weights involved in the solution designed with ANNs. Our results suggest that the proposed approach is a suitable candidate for solving real-world problems involving differential equations. INDEX TERMS Non-linear differential equations, meta-heuristics, soft computing, corneal shape model, feed-forward artificial neural networks, fractional order Darwinian particle swarm optimization.