Patent ID: 8301473

Claim:
An item monitoring system comprising: a plurality of items, each item having associated therewith at least one remotely pollable identification tag; a plurality of sensors employed within a confined environment to remotely read the pollable identification tags; a first computing device, the first computing device interfacing with the plurality of sensors to determine a location of at least a subset of the plurality of items; and a user interface, displayable by a second computing device, to provide a graphical representation of the environment and to allow a user to locate at least one of the plurality of items within the confined environment, wherein the first computing device interfaces with the plurality of sensors to determine the mass of at least a subset of the plurality of items, and wherein the first computing device determines the center of gravity for the environment, the center of gravity being determined, at least in part, based on the location and mass of each of the plurality of items in the environment.