Types of radio control

There are two broad types of radio control known as single channel and
multi-channel.
Single-channel radio control is effectively an on-off switch operated at
a distance by radio wave. So, to give a very trivial example, you could
use a single-channel control to switch a lamp on or off at the bottom of
your garden. The sender unit would consist of a low-powered radio
transmitter, while the lamp would need a radio receiver and a relay (to
convert the low-powered, incoming radio signal into a higher-powered
electric current big enough to operate the lamp). Single-channel radio
control can only switch things completely on or completely off; it can't
turn them up or down by degrees.
Multi-channel radio control is used to transmit more complex and
useful signals to a piece of remote equipmentfor example, to make a
radio-controlled car speed up, slow down, or steer from side to side.
Instead of just sending a basic on/off signal, it transmits a series of
coded analog or digital pulses that are decoded by the receiver and
used to produce specific actions. For example, turning a steering wheel
on a radio-control transmitter will send a series of pulses that make
an electric motor rotate by a corresponding amount to steer a radiocontrolled car one way or the other. Motors that work this way are known
as servo motors. Unlike normal electric motors, which rotate an
arbritary number of times according to how long they receive an electric
current, servo motors are much more controllable and have built-in
electronic feedback mechanisms (based on potentiometerssimilar to
variable resistors), which enable you to make them rotate by reasonably
precise amounts.

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