Operational Experience and Performance with the ATLAS Pixel detector at the Large Hadron Collider

The tracking performance of the ATLAS detector relies critically on its 4-layer Pixel Detector which has undergone significant hardware and readout upgrades to meet the challenges imposed by the higher collision energy, pileup and luminosity delivered by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with record breaking instantaneous luminosities of 2 x 10^34 cm-2 s-1 recently surpassed. The key status and performance metrics of the ATLAS Pixel Detector are summarized, and the operational experience and requirements to ensure optimum data quality and data taking efficiency will be described, with special emphasis on radiation damage experience