Patent ID: 8564547

Claim:
A remote control device for controlling a remote control vehicle comprising: a touch surface including one or more capacitive touch sensors, each touch sensor corresponding to one or more of a direction and a speed of the remote control vehicle; a control circuit connected to each of the one or more touch sensors, the control circuit being configured to energize the touch sensors and to detect variance in capacitance of the touch sensors; and a transmitter connected to the control circuit and configured to transmit control signals; wherein upon detection of variance in the capacitance of the one or more sensing elements the transmitter transmits control signals corresponding to the direction and speed represented by the sensing element in which a variance in capacitance was detected, wherein the control circuit energizes the one or more touch sensors by a pulse and wherein the control circuit monitors the one or more touch sensors for decay in the pulse to determine when an object has contacted one or more of the touch sensors.