What kind of dynamics is a piecewise linear system able to display? How may they generate heteroclinic chaos? How can the coexistence of attractors be designed and characterized? Is it necessary to have equilibrium points to generate chaotic behavior? Chaos theory and complex systems are interesting and evolving topics whose investigation from a theoretical and practical point of view constantly leads to arising questions. Interesting behaviors can be observed in self-excited attractors, hidden attractors and non-self-excited attractors.This book presents some fundamentals of linear system theory and recent approaches to design the three classes of chaotic attractors in piecewise linear systems. Each chapter presents a brief description and basic concepts to provide an overview of linear systems theory; chaos and multistability in integer linear systems; hidden and non-self-excited attractors; and fractional approaches. They also provide example systems to illustrate the concepts and design methods introduced. Some current topics under investigation are addressed from an integer order perspective to make the connection with the fractional order counterpart.This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction, methodologies, and analysis tools to study chaotic piecewise linear systems and will be suitable for undergraduate or graduate students interested in the field of chaos and complex dynamics.
