CONTAINER STRUCTURE WITH BUILTIN HEATSINK FOR HOUSING A SENSOR UNIT OF AN AUTONOMOUS DRIVING VEHICLE

A sensor unit utilized in an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) includes a unit tray containing a sensor interface, a host interface, and one or more sensor processing modules. The sensor interface can be coupled to a variety of sensors used in the ADV, such as, for example, LIDAR, RADAR, cameras, etc., which may be mounted on different locations of the ADV. The host interface can be coupled a host system that is responsible for autonomously driving the vehicle. The host system is configured to perceive a driving environment surrounding the ADV base on sensor data obtained from the sensors and plan a path to autonomously drive the vehicle through the driving environment. The sensor processing modules are configured to process the sensor data obtained from the sensors.