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 closedloop. 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.