Research on the Frequency Steering Strategy of a Hydrogen Maser

Abstract

In the master clock system, the local standard time UTC(k) with a better short-term stability will be generated, if the hydrogen maser is set as a frequency source of the master clock. But the hydrogen maser always exhibits an apparent frequency drift, thus its long-term stability gets poor with the time, therefore the stability and accuracy of UTC(k) become worse. To solve this problem, the performance of hydrogen maser is compared with cesium clocks, and the time scale algorithm is modified when the hydrogen maser is involved, a new steering strategy is proposed when a hydrogen maser is used as the frequency source of the master clock. An experimental system is set up with the programs compiled, and finally the new steering strategy is testified with the laboratory data. The results show that when the hydrogen maser is involved in the atomic time scale calculation, the short-term frequency stability of the reference time scale will be improved. Meanwhile, the local time UTC(k) has a better short-term frequency stability when the frequency source of the master clock uses a hydrogen maser instead of a cesium clock.