  We describe the ongoing `Survey for Magnetars, Intermittent pulsars, Rotating
radio transients and Fast radio bursts' (SMIRF), performed using the newly
refurbished UTMOST telescope. SMIRF repeatedly sweeps the southern Galactic
plane performing real-time periodicity and single-pulse searches, and is the
first survey of its kind carried out with an interferometer. SMIRF is
facilitated by a robotic scheduler which is capable of fully autonomous
commensal operations. We report on the SMIRF observational parameters, the data
analysis methods, the survey's sensitivities to pulsars, techniques to mitigate
radio frequency interference and present some early survey results. UTMOST's
wide field of view permits a full sweep of the Galactic plane to be performed
every fortnight, two orders of magnitude faster than previous surveys. In the
six months of operations from January to June 2018, we have performed $\sim 10$
sweeps of the Galactic plane with SMIRF. Notable blind re-detections include
the magnetar PSR J1622$-$4950, the RRAT PSR J0941$-$3942 and the eclipsing
pulsar PSR J1748$-$2446A. We also report the discovery of a new pulsar, PSR
J1705$-$54. Our follow-up of this pulsar with the UTMOST and Parkes telescopes
at an average flux limit of $\leq 20$ mJy and $\leq 0.16$ mJy respectively,
categorizes this as an intermittent pulsar with a high nulling fraction of $<
0.002$
