Strategy and automation of the quality assurance testing of MaPMTs for the LHCb RICH upgrade

The LHCb RICH system will undergo major modifications for the LHCb Upgrade during the Long Shutdown 2 of the LHC, and the current photon detectors will be replaced by Multi Anode PMTs. The operating conditions of the upgraded experiment puts forth significant requirements onto the MaPMTs in terms of their performance, durability \& reliability. Presented is an overview of the testing facilities designed and used to vet 3100 units of Hamamatsu R13742 and 450 units of Hamamatsu R13743 during the short 2 year testing period. Discussed are the hardware architecture, the different read-out, power and control components, as well as the novel extensible software framework to steer the procedure. Finally, the operation of four automated stations, that have been deployed in two separate labs, is reported, with each station capable of fully characterising 16 MaMPTs per day.