Systems and methods for a stationary CT imaging system

A stationary computed tomography (CT) system, comprising:

• a stationary distributed x-ray source unit comprising a plurality of emitters positioned to emit x-ray beams toward an object in an imaging volume;
• a plurality of detector elements forming one or more detector arrays extending around at least a portion of the imaging volume;
• and
• one or more computing devices configured to:
• activate a first emitter of the plurality of emitters to emit a first x-ray beam shaped and positioned to be intercepted by a subset of detector elements of the plurality of detector elements;
• measure scatter of the first x-ray beam caused by the object;
• activate one or more additional emitters of the plurality of emitters to emit one or more additional x-ray beams shaped and positioned to be intercepted by one or more additional subsets of detector elements of the plurality of detector elements;
• obtain projection data from the subset of detector elements and the one or more additional subsets of detector elements;
• correct the projection data with the measured scatter to form scatter-corrected projection data;
• and
• reconstruct one or more images from the scatter-corrected projection data.

A method for a stationary computed tomography (CT) system, comprising:

• obtaining a plurality of views of projection data by sequentially activating a plurality of emitters of a stationary distributed x-ray source unit to emit a plurality of x-ray beams toward an object within an imaging volume and intercepting the plurality of x-ray beams, after attenuation by the object, at a plurality of detector elements of one or more detector arrays;
• for a first view of the plurality of views obtained by activating a first emitter of the plurality of emitters to emit a primary x-ray beam, generating a transmission profile, an attenuation profile, and a scatter measurement based on output from the plurality of detector elements, where the attenuation profile includes output from only detector elements positioned to intercept the primary x-ray beam, the scatter measurement includes output from only detector elements positioned outside of the primary x-ray beam, and the transmission profile includes output from detector elements positioned to intercept the primary x-ray beam and detector elements positioned outside of the primary x-ray beam;
• entering the transmission profile, the attenuation profile, and the scatter measurement into a model trained to output a scatter profile indicative of an amount of scattered x-ray beams received at the detector elements positioned to intercept the primary x-ray beam;
• correcting the projection data of the first view and each remaining view based on the scatter profile;
• and
• reconstructing an image from the corrected projection data.