Ultrasonic sensors have been widely used to recognize the working environment for a mobile robot. However, their intrinsic problems, such as specular reflection, wide beam angle, and slow propagation velocity, require an excessive number of sensors to be integrated for achieving the sensing goal. This paper proposes a new measurement scheme which uses only two sets of ultrasonic sensors to determine the location and the type of a target surface. By measuring the time difference between the returned signals from the target surface, which are generated by two transmitters with 1 ㎳ difference, it classifies the type and determines the size of the target surface. Since the proposed sensor system uses only two sets of ultrasonic sensors to recognize and localize the target surface, it significantly simplifies the sensing system and reduces the signal processing time so that the working environment can be recognized in real time.