This experimental study was conducted to investigate the behavior of hybrid composite sandwich panels with superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) wires under low velocity impact (LVI). Square-shaped sandwich panels were made few of a foam core and hybrid composite structures with carbon fiber and glass fiber, in which prestrained superelastic SMA wires were embedded between the layers. The sandwich panels had symmetrical and asymmetrical lay-ups and SMA wires were placed between the layers with different states. LVI tests were performed by drop weight impact testing machine. Moreover, damaged areas of the panels were estimated using thermography. The experimental results showed that the impact performance of the panels improved after embedding SMA wires. The presence of the SMA within the composite sandwich structure prevented the full perforation of the samples and reduced the internal delamination area. The utilization of SMA wires embedded in front face sheet, which is subject to the direct impact, is more effective than the utilization of wire in the back face layer. It was also found that increasing the layers of the back face and asymmetrication of the structure were more effective than the use of SMA wires in the symmetric structure in improving the panel impact resistance. K E Y W O R D S active infrared thermography, composite sandwich panel, damaged area, low velocity impact, superelastic SMA wire 1 | INTRODUCTION Sandwich panels are usually used for constructing lightweight structures with high mechanical load capacity. Composite sandwich panels composed of composite skins and a thick low-density core can improve different properties of structure such as stiffness, strength, sound insulation, low heat transfer, and high impact energy absorption. [1-4] Today, this type of structures is used in aerospace, marine, transport, and civil industries. [5] Low resistance under low velocity impact (LVI) loading is one of the important weaknesses of composite sandwich panels. Hence, in order to improve their performance, it is necessary to comprehensively investigate the behavior of composite sandwich panels under LVI. [6-10] The behavior of sandwich panels and hybrid composite structures under LVI has been extensively studied using