  The instantaneous luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will be
increased by up to a factor of five to seven with respect to the design value.
To maintain an excellent detection and background rejection capability in the
forward region of the ATLAS detector, part of the muon detection system will be
upgraded during LHC shutdown periods with the replacement of part of the
present first station in the forward regions with the so-called New Small
Wheels (NSWs). The NSWs will have a diameter of approximately 10 m and will be
made of two detector technologies: Micromegas and small-strip Thin Gap Chambers
(sTGC). The physics motivation for this significant upgrade to the ATLAS
detector will be presented. The design choices made to address the physics
needs will be discussed. Finally, the status of the production of the detector
modules will be presented.
