  The present article discusses the exact observability of the wave equation
when the observation subset of the boundary is variable in time. In the
one-dimensional case, we prove an equivalent condition for the exact
observability, which takes into account only the location in time of the
observation. To this end we use Fourier series. Then we investigate the two
specific cases of single exchange of the control position, and of exchange at a
constant rate. In the multi-dimensional case, we analyse sufficient conditions
for the exact observability relying on the multiplier method. In the last
section, the multi-dimensional results are applied to specific settings and
some connections between the one and multi-dimensional case are discussed;
furthermore some open problems are presented.
