Within the frame of a Franco-German cooperation between the German Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the French Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Victor 6000 was successfully deployed from the German research icebreaker R/V Polarstern during the polar expedition ARK XV/1 to Fram Strait and the Greenland Sea from June 23 to July 18, 1999. In contrast to traditional observation/sampling methods (for example, moored timelapse cameras, towed photo/video systems, box and multiple corers), the ROV facilitates controlled optical surveys, a targeted sampling of water probes, sediments, and organisms as well as direct manipulation at the seafloor (installation of experiments), and thus opens up new perspectives for innovative research projects in the deep sea.