Time scale algorithms for an inhomogeneous group of atomic clocks

Through the past 17 years, the time scale requirements at the National Research Council (NRC) have been met by the unsteered output of its primary laboratory cesium clocks, supplemented by hydrogen masers when short-term stability better than 2 x 10(exp -12)tau(sup -1/2) has been required. NRC now operates three primary laboratory cesium clocks, three hydrogen masers, and two commercial cesium clocks. NRC has been using ensemble averages for internal purposes for the past several years, and has a realtime algorithm operating on the outputs of its high-resolution (2 x 10(exp -13) s at 1 s) phase comparators. The slow frequency drift of the hydrogen masers has presented difficulties in incorporating their short-term stability into the ensemble average, while retaining the long-term stability of the laboratory cesium frequency standards. We report on this work on algorithms for an inhomogeneous ensemble of atomic clocks, and on our initial work on time scale algorithms that could incorporate frequency calibrations at NRC from the next generation of Zacharias fountain cesium frequency standards having frequency accuracies that might surpass 10(exp -15), or from single-trapped-ion frequency standards (Ba+, Sr+,...) with even higher potential accuracies. The requirements for redundancy in all the elements (including the algorithms) of an inhomogeneous ensemble that would give a robust real-time output of the algorithms are presented and discussed.