A royal first: German robot salutes Queen on Berlin visit
The Queen received an unusual royal salute when a short robot greeted her in Berlin.
Both the Queen and Prince Philip looked pleased with the tiny welcome as the small machine, called Nao, turned and waved to the monarch.
The robot's designers had wanted it to bow when their royal guest arrived - but they were afraid it would fall over.
Lecturer Marco Luetzenberger, 35, from Berlin, told Nao to "stand up" when the Queen walked over to it.
He then said "Where's the Queen?" and Nao turned around to face her as she and the Duke of Edinburgh beamed with amusement.Then Mr Luetzenberger asked "What do we do when we see the Queen?", at which point the robot did what looked like a wave or salute.
The royal couple were visiting Berlin's Technical University for the Queen's Lecture, an annual talk in Germany, now in its 50th year, which usually covers science or music but this year focused on Germany's image of Britain and how it has shaped the two nations' joint history.
It was delivered by Neil MacGregor, the out-going director of the British Museum, whose address, entitled Symbols Of A Nation, covered a range of topics including the monarchy's love of dogs and gardens, and parliamentary democracy before coming on to James Bond, who first appeared in 1953, the year of the Queen's Coronation, in Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale.
The first Queen's Lecture was given in 1966 by a physicist, Denys Haigh Wilkinson. Since 1997 the lecture has taken place at the university, which was re-established in 1946 with the help of British forces.