Research in 5G has so far been aimed towards laying out a conceptual vision and the engineering requirements. The focus is now shifting towards standardization through evaluation of potential solutions. 5G wireless communication system is expected to serve a diverse range of services with different design requirements. Dense small cells with multiple antenna nodes are believed to be key elements in meeting these challenging requirements. 5G will thus feature an adaptable air interface with

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... ully designed radio resource management techniques that can optimize each link according to its service requirements. This article provides an overview of key radio resource management techniques for 5G dense small cells and demonstrates how these techniques can contribute to fulfilling some of the important 5G requirements. Preliminary system level simulation results indicate that a mean throughput gain of around 63%, and up to 84% in latency reduction can be achieved utilizing the discussed resource management techniques.