A Research on the Algorithm of Local Atomic Time

The goal of all time laboratories’ pursue is to produce and keep a stable, precise and reliable time scale. The long-term stability of the time scale is mainly taken into account in the traditional ALGOS algorithm, while the local atomic time scale should give consideration to both the long-term and shortterm stabilities. From the analysis and research on the atomic clock noise model and under the condition that the long-term stability of the local atomic time scale does not drop, a complete algorithm is proposed which is suitable for the calculation of the local time scale TA (NTSC) carried out at the time laboratory with the time-keeping clocks of a unitary type and being close in performance at the National Time Service Center, called the NTSC for short, of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The data of all the clocks in the NTSC which participated in the calculation of the International Atomic Time (TAI) all the year round in 2008 are applied to the test and verification of the new algorithm, with the result showing that both the short- and long-term stability indexes of the obtained TA (NTSC) are improved. The research result is suitable for the calculation of the atomic time scale of the time laboratory whose time keeping system is similar to that of the NTSC.