In this paper, we investigate the controllability of spin 1 systems and the realization of ternary gates. Using dipole and quadrupole operators as the orthogonal basis of su(3) algebra, we discuss the controllability of one spin 1 systems and offer the concept of a complete set of control operators first. Then we present the controllability of two spin 1 systems coupled with Ising interaction and the transforming relations of the drift process of the system. Finally the specific realization of the ternary SWAP gate in these systems is discussed. It takes 9 drift processes and 25 basic control processes. controllability, spin 1 system, ternary SWAP gate, Ising interaction PACS: 03.67.Lx, 03.65.Fd, 75.10.Pq The realization of quantum information [1,2] requires the accurate control over quantum states. The control of quantum systems has a long history, dating back to the early 1980s. Huang et al. [3] studied the controllability of quantum systems. Ong et al. [4] studied the reversibility of linear quantum systems, and Clark et al.[5] studied the observability of the quantum system. The active control over quantum states renders it necessary to decompose the time evolution unitary matrix of the system into products of several realizable matrices.In recent years, the high dimension quantum information processing has become a hot research topic. There have been many proposals to use multi-valued quantum system to implement the quantum information processes, such as quantum cryptography [6,7], quantum teleportation [8-10] and direct communication [11], quantum dense coding [12,13] and computation [14,15]. Three level quantum systems, so-called qutrits, are the simplest multi-valued quantum systems. The preparation of 2-qutirt entangled states is discussed in ref.[16], the orbit classification of qutrit states is discussed in ref. [17], and the bang-bang control of 3-level atom is studied in ref. [18]. Spin 1's are a very common example of three level systems. The three level systems can also be considered pseudo spin 1's. The controllability of two coupled spin 1's with Heisenberg interaction is discussed in ref. [19]. Decomposition of matrix are crucial in implementing and optimizing quantum gates. In ref.[20], a 2-qutrit logic gate is resolved into four 1-qutrit quantum multiplexers and three 1-qutrit uniformly controlled rotations acting on the first qutrit. But the realization of these two basic components needs studies further. A Cartan decomposition [21,22] for two qutrit systems is discussed in ref. [23]. Based on this decomposition, the realization of the ternary SWAP gate and the ternary SWAP gate in a bipartite 3-level system with quasi-Ising interaction is investigated specifically in ref. [24]. But the Ising interaction is more realistic than the quasi-Ising interaction. Using dipole and quadrupole operators as the orthogonal basis of su(3) algebra, another Cartan decomposition of matrix is given for two coupled spin 1's system in ref. [25]. This paper aims to study the controllability of spin 1 systems and ...