In this paper, a series of distributed order PI controller design methods are derived and applied to the robust control of wheeled service robots, which can tolerate more structural and parametric uncertainties than the corresponding fractional order PI control. A practical discrete incremental distributed order PI control strategy is proposed basing on the discretization method and the frequency criterions, which can be commonly used in many fields of fractional order system, control and signal processing. Besides, an auto-tuning strategy and the genetic algorithm are applied to the distributed order PI control as well. A number of experimental results are provided to show the advantages and distinguished features of the discussed methods in fairways.