Patent ID: 8217915

Claim:
A capacitive position sensor comprising: a substrate; a single resistive sensing element forming a continuous resistor supported by the substrate in an angular route; and three spaced-apart terminals disposed along the single resistive sensing element to couple to separate sensing channels, wherein signals from the three spaced-apart terminals are representative of a position of a touch along the single resistive sensing element; each sensing channel being operable to generate a signal indicative of a capacitance for a respective terminal coupled to the sensing channel, the position of the touch along the single resistive sensing element being determinable by performing operations comprising: determining a section of the single resistive sensing element corresponding to the touch, the determined section being between a first terminal and an adjacent second terminal; subtracting a signal of a respective sensing channel coupled to a third terminal from each of signals taken from respective sensing channels coupled to the first and the second terminals to generate first and second reduced signals; and determining the position of the touch within the determined section using a ratiometric analysis of the first and second reduced signals.