Device and method for detecting the presence, in particular a fall of a person

A wall-mounted fall detection device comprising:

• at least one matrix thermal sensor (2), configured to provide a matrix in pixels of an image detected in front of it by distinguishing on the pixels the differences in temperatures detected, the matrix representing an image of the volume of the part facing the detection device;
• the matrix thermal sensor being designed to delimit two distinct detection zones, one zone (20) extending above the horizontal plane passing through the center of the matrix thermal sensor, and one zone (21) extending below said plane;
• electronic means for processing measurement data from the thermal matrix sensor, incorporating correspondence data between the pixels of the thermal matrix sensor matrix and the detection zones provided by the thermal matrix sensor;
• the electronic processing means being provided with an algorithm for detecting the position of the hottest point and its displacements relative to the thermal matrix sensor;
• the electronic processing means detecting a fall only if a set of pixels detected as hot appears in both the high zone (20) and the low zone (21), and then appears only in the low zone for a fixed minimum duration.