The New Small Wheel Upgrade Project of the ATLAS Experiment

The instantaneous luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will be increased up to a factor of five with respect to the design value by undergoing an extensive upgrade program over the coming decade. The largest phase 1 upgrade project for the ATLAS Muon System is the replacement of the present first station in the forward regions with the so-called New Small Wheels (NSWs), to be installed during the LHC long shutdown in 2018/19. The NSWs consist of eight layers each of Micromegas and small-strip Thin Gap Chambers (sTGC), both providing trigger and tracking capabilities, for a total active surface of more than 2500 m(2). It represents the first system with such a large size based on Micro Pattern (Micromegas) and wire detectors (sTGC). The technological novelties and the expected performance of the NSW system are discussed. The status of the project and the plan for the completion are summarized.