Performance and Operation of the ATLAS RPC Detector during the 2011 LHC run

Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) provide the barrel region of the ATLAS detector with an independent muon trigger and a two-coordinate measurement. The chambers, arranged in three concentric double layers are operated in a strong magnetic toroidal field and cover a surface area of about 4000 m2. During 2011 the LHC has provided proton-proton collisions at 7 GeV in the center-of-mass frame with a steady increase in instantaneous luminosity over several orders of magnitude, summing up to 5fb-1. The operational experience for this running period is presented along with studies on the detector performance as a function of luminosity, environmental conditions and working point settings. The measurements presented allow defining a strategy for the data taking in next years and make predictions on the performance when higher luminosities will be reached.