A robot cleaner includes a main brush to sweep or scatter dust off a floor, a main brush motor to rotate the main brush, a Revolution Per Minute (RPM) detector to detect an RPM of the main brush motor, and a control unit to determine a type of floor according to the RPM of the main brush motor acquired by the RPM detector and control an operation of the robot cleaner based on the determined type of floor. A carpet mode to clean only a carpet area and a hard floor mode to clean a hard floor area excluding the carpet area are given based on detected information relating to the material of a floor, which enables partial cleaning with respect to a cleaning area selected by a user and adjustment in the number of cleaning operations or the intensity of cleaning according to the material of the floor.