Flatness-based Control and Conventional RST Polynomial Control of a Thermal Process

In this paper, a comparison between conventional RST polynomial control by poles placement and RST flatness-based control is proposed. These approaches were developed, in discrete-time formalism by carrying out a generation of a reference starting from a flat output and by then analyzing the tracking error in closed-loop. The case of the thermal system, that we applied an output disturbance, was considered by simulation to study the effectiveness of given flatness-based robust controller with the integration of an anti-windup device, in terms of tracking trajectory and disturbance rejection.