Developing an IGS time scale

Currently, the International GPS Service (IGS) provides a set of clock products for both satellites and tracking receivers, tabulated at 5-min intervals. These products allow users to determine consistent coordinates and clock values for an isolated GPS receiver with an internal accuracy at the few-cm level. However, because the underlying time scale for the IGS combined clocks is based on a linear alignment to broadcast GPS Time for each day separately, the day-to-day stability of this reference is poor. We show the results of a new filter package written to automate the production of an integrated IGS frequency scale based on a dynamically weighted ensemble of the included frequency standards. The new scale is loosely steered to GPS Time.