Anti-control of chaos has attracted a lot of attention recently due to its potential applications in science and engineering. How to generate useful chaos that is also practically implementable and useful is a current focus of research. This research aims at developing new chaos generation schemes which demonstrate complex dynamical behaviours using simple linear systems with hysteresis function series. A continuous-time linear unstable second-order system with a feedback of hysteresis function is first proposed for generating chaos. The design for chaos generation is studied theoretically. A Poincaré map is used to demonstrate the dynamical behaviour of the system. The existence and the analytic solution of the limit cycle that bounds the basin of attraction of the chaotic attractor are derived. Conditions for the existence of chaotic attractors are studied. A hysteresis based system with a maximum chaotic stability margin is designed. Second, systematic methods for generating 1D n-scroll chaotic attractors in the directions of the state variables and 2D nxm-grid scroll chaotic attractors in the phase plane via continuous-time linear unstable second-order systems with a feedback of hysteresis function series are proposed. Furthermore, systematic methods for generating 1D n-scroll, 2D nxm-grid scroll and 3D nxmxl-space scroll chaotic attractors via continuous-time linear unstable third-order systems using hysteresis function series feedback are also presented in this thesis. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate effectiveness of the schemes. It is shown that the multi-scroll chaos generation systems can be represented in Lur'e form, and as a result it may be used within synchronization schemes for secure communication. Third, the limit cycle that bounds the basin of attraction in the multi-scroll chaos generation with second-order systems case is studied. The relationship of the size of the basin of attraction with the numbers of hysteresis function series is studied. The multi-scroll chaos generation mechanism is then further explored by analyzing the system trajectories; the switching boundaries, switching rules and the trajectories on each subspace. The chaotic behaviours are confirmed theoretically and it is proved that a non-ordinary attractor exists in the multi-scroll chaotic attractor of the second-order systems case. The abundant dynamical behaviour of the multi-scroll chaos generation systems using different hysteresis feedback are demonstrated. A double-hysteresis function, which is the superimposition of two basic hysteresis functions, is proposed for the implementation of the hysteresis based chaotic system. In this design, the double-hysteresis block and its series are constructed via a systematic method. The ideal hysteresis function series can be implemented easily with the proposed double-hysteresis function. The number of scroll attractors can be designed arbitrarily, and the multi-scroll chaotic attractors can be located anywhere and cover any chosen area of the phase plane. The circuitry implementation for generating 1D n-scroll, 2D nxm-grid scroll chaotic attractors with linear second-order systems and hysteresis function series is given. And the oscilloscope illustrated waveforms which included as many as 9x9=81 scrolls chaotic attractor are presented. The experimental results confirmed the theoretical analysis very well and validated the effectiveness as well as the feasibility of the proposed multi-scroll chaos generation schemes. This research may find potential engineering applications in areas such as digital coding and image processing, etc
