In this paper, we present a new class of dynamical system without equilibria which possesses a multiscroll attractor. It is a piecewise-linear system which is simple, stable, displays chaotic behavior and serves as a model for analogous non-linear systems. We test for chaos using the 0-1 Test for Chaos from Gottwald and Melbourne [SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst. 8(1), 129–145 (2009)].

In this work, we present an approach to design a multistable system with one-directional (1D), two-directional (2D), and three-directional (3D) hidden multiscroll attractor by defining a vector field on ℝ3 with an even number of equilibria. The design of multistable systems with hidden attractors remains a challenging task. Current design approaches are not as flexible as those that focus on self-excited attractors. To facilitate a design of hidden multiscroll attractors, we propose an approach that is based on the existence of self-excited double-scroll attractors and switching surfaces whose relationship with the local manifolds associated to the equilibria lead to the appearance of the hidden attractor. The multistable systems produced by the approach could be explored for potential applications in cryptography, since the number of attractors can be increased by design in multiple directions while preserving the hidden attractor allowing a bigger key space.