Summary: The key scientific performance of the inertial sensor used for space gravitational wave detection is the residual acceleration noise of the test mass (TM), which is caused by the noise of inertial sensor components and external environmental noise. As the actuator of the inertial sensor, the performance of the actuator circuit affects the residual acceleration noise, but it is difficult to test the residual acceleration noise with a single actuation circuit. In this study, the actuator circuit is designed and a low-cost hardware-in-the-loop simulation system combined actuation circuit and other parts of the inertial sensor are established to test the residual acceleration noise. The system is composed of simulator electronics and software simulator, which establishes the connection between the actuation circuit with the Simulink model. The displacement sensing, probe, and drag-free model were built in Simulink to form a closed loop with the actuation circuit through the serial port. The simulation and test results show that the hardware-in-the-loop simulation system can preliminarily test the residual acceleration of TM, and the residual acceleration introduced by the actuation circuit is \(2.5 \times 10^{-13}\,\mathrm{ms}^{-2}\mathrm{Hz}^{-1/2}\). Compared with the conventional test method, the system has the advantages of low cost, simple implementation, and easy extension to test any single inertial sensor module.