The design of robust linear and nonlinear controllers for a multiburner heating plant commonly seen in industry is described. First a nonlinear controller design based on sliding mode theory is developed. A nonlinear observer is used for state estimation and the resulting nonlinear controller-observer pair is implemented on a nonlinear simulation facility. An H_∞ approach is employed to design a linear robust controller. The nonlinear simulation results for this controller are also shown. Finally, a quantative comparison between the performance of both controllers is presented.