Boundary controllability of a higher-order Boussinesq system

The paper deals with the boundary controllability of a family of nonlinear Boussinesq systems introduced by J. L. Bona, M. Chen and J.-C. Saut to describe the two-way propagation of small amplitude gravity waves on the surface of water in a canal. By combining the classical duality approach and a careful spectral analysis of the operator associated with the state equations, we first obtain the exact controllability of the linearized system in suitable Hilbert spaces. Then, by means of a contraction mapping principle, we establish the local exact controllability for the original nonlinear system.