AbstractIn the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), remote handling of the blanket is a key issue since scheduled maintenance is foreseen, including a complete replacement of the shielding blanket by a breeding blanket. According to the ITER R&D program, a rail-mounted vehicle-type remote handling (RH) system has been developed, and its applicability to blanket maintenance has been demonstrated through fabrication and testing of prototypes. Based on this, a full-scale blanket RH test platform is being fabricated in order to demonstrate the remote replacement of a full-scale blanket module of about 4 tons dead weight. The test platform is basically composed of a vehicle manipulator operating on a toroidal rail, for handling a blanket module in a 180° in-vessel region, a receiver for transporting a module from the manipulator to a transfer cask for delivery to the hot cell, rail deployment and supports. These RH equipment / tools were due to be completed by the end of June 1997 and, thereafter, assembled into the blanket RH test platform. This paper describes the progress and outlines the main RH equipment / tools for the blanket RH test platform.